


A STUDENT'S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



f 



BOOKS ON THE HISTORY OF 
EDUCATION 

By 
Dean Frank P. Graves 

A History of Education in Three 

Volumes 

Vol. I. Before the Middle Ages 

Vol. n. During the Middle Ages and 

the Transition to Modem 

Times 
Vol. III. In Modem Times 



Great Educators of Three Centuries 
Peter Ramus and the Educational 

Reformation of the Slxteenth 

Century 

A Student's History of Education 



* 



A STUDENT'S HISTORY 
OF EDUCATION 



BY 
FRANK PIERREPONT GRAVES 

(PH.D., COLUMBIA) 

DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION AND PROFESSOR 

OF THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN THE 

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
191S 

All rights reaerted 



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Copyright, 1915 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1915. 



JUL 22 1915 



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TO 
WILLIAM OXLEY THOMPSON, LL.D. 

PRESIDENT OF THE OHIO STATE UmVERSITY 

WITH APPRECIATIVE MEMORIES OF 
SIX PLEASANT YEARS OF ASSOCIATION 



PREFACE 

There is a growing con\dction among those engaged 
in training teachers that the History of Education must 
justify itself. It is beheved that, if this subject is to con- 
tribute to the professional equipment of the teacher, its 
material must be selected with reference to his specific 
needs. Antiquarian interests and encyclopaedic complete- 
ness are alluring and may in their place prove praise- 
worthy and valuable, but they do not in themselves 
supply any definite demand in the training of teachers. 
The greatest services that the History of Education can 
perform for the teacher are to impel him to analyze his 
problems more completely and to throw hght upon the 
school practices with which he is himself concerned. By 
presenting a series of clear-cut views of past conditions, 
often in marked contrast to his own, it should make him 
conscious that the present educational situation has to 
a large degree been traditionally received, and it should 
at the same time especially help him to understand the 
origin and significance of current practices. 

In this way a study of the History of Education will 
disrupt the teacher's complacent acceptance of the pres- 
ent, and will enable him to reconstruct his ideas in the 
Hght of the pecuhar conditions out of which the educa- 
tion of his times has sprung. Whenever historical records 
do not assist in such an analysis and synthesis of present 
day problems, they may be frankly dismissed from dis- 
cussion. This conception of the subject, I have myself, 

vii 



vm PREFACE 

with much reluctance, come to accept. My own regard 
for the classics, philosophy, and general history as col- 
lege disciplines has caused me to view with apprehen- 
sion any disposition to curtail their scope. It now 
seems clear, however, that the modern tendency to em- 
phasize the functional aspects of the History of Educa- 
tion is both necessary and wise. The present work, 
therefore, is not a mere condensation of my History oj 
Education in Three Volumes, but has been very largely 
re- written from the new angle. 

In the first place, I have sought to stress educational 
institutions and practices, rather than theories that did 
not find embodiment in the times. This has led to the 
omission of much that is unessential or more strictly re- 
lated to philosophy, general history, or literature. For 
example, even the immortal work of Plato and Aristotle 
has been epitomized; the entire subject of mysticism 
and most of scholasticism have been dropped; the mas- 
terpieces of such pure theorists as Rabelais, Montaigne, 
and Mulcaster, are barely mentioned; and the various 
historical epochs are given only so much detail as may 
be needed to form a social setting for the educational 
movements of those periods. 

Secondly, it has seemed to me that our present prob- 
lems in education can best be analyzed through a knowl- 
edge of the practices that have developed in modern 
times. Hence, while this book includes an account of 
all educational endeavor from the day of primitive man 
to the present, somewhat more than one-half the ma- 
terial is connected with the last two centuries. Even 
the attractive period of Hellenic activity and the fas- 
cinating stories of monasticism and of chivalry have been 



PREFACE IX 

reduced to a minimum. But, though most of the changes 
in the earlier half of the work are in the nature of 
shortening, or have to do with more immediate connec- 
tions, some topics, notably the development of commerce 
and cities (Chapter XI) and the analysis of formal 
discipline (Chapter XVI), have seemed to be so closely 
connected with subsequent progress as to deserve more 
adequate treatment. 

Finally, since this book is intended chiefly for teachers 
in the United States, I have believed it most helpful to 
give considerable space to the discussion of American 
education. The account of each educational movement 
has included at least an attempt to trace its influence 
upon the content, method, and organization of educa- 
tion in the United States, while three chapters have been 
devoted exclusively to the rise of educational systems in 
this country. 

My indebtedness for many valuable features in this 
book is heavy. The idea of an Outline, which appears at 
the beginning of each chapter, was first suggested to me 
by the History of Modern Elementary Education of Dean 
S. C. Parker of the College of Education, University of 
Chicago, although I have adopted a different explana- 
tion of its value. Professor Parker also read through 
the manuscript and sent me a general estimate of it. 
Professors J. H. Coursault of the University of Missouri, 
A. J. Jones of the University of Maine, W. H. Kilpatrick 
of Columbia University, A. R. Mead of Ohio Wesleyan 
University, and A. L. Suhrie of the West Chester (Penn- 
sylvania) State Normal School, have all read the manu- 
script through with exceeding care and furnished me with 
numerous corrections and criticisms, both particular and 



X PREFACE 

general. Professor T. H. Briggs of Columbia University 
suggested a number of improvements in the chapter 
upon Present Day Tendencies in Education (XXVII.) 
The chapter upon the Educational Influences of the 
Reformation (XIX) has been reUeved of several in- 
accuracies, and possibly of some Protestant bias, 
through the assistance of the Rev. Benedict Guldner, 
S. J., of St. Joseph's College, and of Brother Denis 
Edward, F. S. C, President of La Salle College, Phila- 
delphia. I have also, as usual, been greatly aided by 
my wife, Helen Wadsworth Graves. 

F. P. G. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 
ANCIENT TIMES 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The Earliest Education ...... 3 

The Value of the History of Education. Its Treat- 
ment in This Book. Primitive Education. Oriental 
Education. India: Its Religion and Castes. The Hindu 
Education. Effect of the Hindu Education. India as 
Typical of the Orient. Jewish Education. 

CHAPTER II 

The Education of the Greeks ..... n 
Progressive Nature of Greek Education. Spartan 
Education: Its Aim and Early Stages. Training in 
Youth and Manhood: Results. Old Athenian Educa- 
tion: Its Aim and Early Training. Training for the 
Youth. Effect of the Old Athenian Education. Causes 
and Character of the New Athenian Education. The 
Sophists and Their Training. Their Extreme Individ- y 
ualism. The Reactionaries and the Mediators. The ,- 
Method of Socrates. Plato's System of Education for 
the Three Classes of Society. The Weakness of Plato's 
System. His Influence upon Educational Theory and 
Practice. Aristotle's Ideal State and Education. The u'^'' 
Permanent Value of His Work. The Post-Aristotelian 
Schools of Philosophy. The Schools of Rhetoric. The 
Hellenic Universities. Extension of Hellenic Culture. 



XI 



XU CONTENTS 

CHAPTER III 

PAGE 

The Education of the Romans 32 

Roman Education Amalgamated with Greek. Early 
Education in Rome. The Absorption of Greek Culture. 
The Ludus. Grammar Schools. Rhetorical Schools. 
Universities. Subsidization of Education. Decay of 
Education. Influence of Roman Education. 

CHAPTER IV 

The Education of the Early Christians ... 42 
The Ideals of Early Christianity. Early Christian 
Life as an Education. Catechumenal Schools. Amal- 
gamation of Christianity with Graeco-Roman Philos- 
ophy. Catechetical and Episcopal or Cathedral Schools. 
Influence of Grajco-Roman Culture upon Christianity. 
Rise of the Monastic Schools. 

PART II 
THE MIDDLE AGES 

CHAPTER V 

The Monastic Education 53 

The Middle Ages as a Period of Assimilation and Re- 
pression. The Evolution and Nature of Monasticism. 
Benedict's 'Rule' and the Multiplication of Manu- 
scripts. Amalgamation of Roman and Irish Christian- 
ity. The Organization of the Monastic Schools. The 
'Seven Liberal Arts' as the Curriculum. The Methods 
and Texts. Effect upon Civilization of the Monastic 
Schools. 

CHAPTER VI 

Charlemagne's Revival of Education . . .60 

Condition of Education in the Eighth Century. 



CONTENTS Xm 

PAGE 

Higher Education at the Palace School. Educational 
Improvement in the Monastic, Cathedral, and Parish 
Schools. Alcuin's Educational Work at Tours. Ra- 
banus Maurus, Erigena, and Others Concerned in the 
Revival. 

CHAPTER VII 

?.TosLEM Learisting and Education .... 65 

The Hellenization of Moslemism. Hellenized Mos- 
lemism in Spain. Effect upon Europe of the Moslem 
Education. 

CHAPTER VIII 

Educational Tendencies of Scholasticism ... 69 
The Nature of Scholasticism. The History of Scholas- 
tic Development. Scholastic Education. Its Value and 
Influence. 

CHAPTER IX 

The MedI;5Eval Universities ..... 74 

The Rise of Universities. The Foundation of Uni- 
versities at Salerno, Bologna, and Paris. Bologna and 
Paris as the Models for Other Universities. Privileges 
Granted to the Universities. Organization of the Uni- 
versities. Course in the Four Faculties. The Methods 
of Instruction. Examinations and Degrees. The Value 
and Influence of the University Training. 

CHAPTER X 

The Education of Chivalry 

The Development of Feudalism. The Ideals of Chiv- 
alry. The Three Preparatory Stages of Education. 
The Eff^ects of Chivalric Education. 

CHAPTER XI 

The Burgher, Gild, and Chantry Schools ... 88 
The Rise of Commerce and Industry. Development 




XIV CONTENTS 

PAGE 

of Cities and the Burgher Class. The Gilds and Indus- 
trial Education. Gild Schools. Burgher Schools. Chan- 
J try Schools. Influence of the New Schools. , 

PART HI 
THE TRANSITION TO MODERN TIMES 

CHAPTER XII 

The Humanistic Education ...... 99 

The Passing of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance 
and the Revival of Learning. Causes of the Awakening 
\/ in Italy. The Revival of the Latin Classics. The De- 
velopment of Greek Scholarship. The Court Schools 
and Vittorino da Feltre. The Court School at Mantua. 
The Relation of the Court Schools to the Universities. 
Decadence of Itahan Humanism. The Spread and Char- 
acter of Humanism in the Northern Countries. The De- 
velopment of Humanism in France. French Humanistic 
Educators and Institutions. Humanism in the German 
Universities. The Hieronymians and Their Schools. 
Erasmus, Leader in the Humanistic Education of the 
North. The Development of Gymnasiums: Melanch- 
thon's Work. Sturm at Strassburg. Formalism in the 
Gymnasiums. The Humanistic Movement in England: 
Greek at Oxford and Cambridge. Humanism at the 
Court. Colet and His School at St. Paul's. Humanism 
in the English Grammar Schools. English Grammar and 
Public Schools To-day. The Grammar Schools in the 
American Colonies. The Aim and Institutions of Hu- 
manistic Education, t 

CHAPTER XIII 

Educational Influences OF THE Reformation . . 124 
The Relation of the Reformation to the Renaissance. 
The Revolt and Educational Works of Luther. Luther's 



CONTENTS XV 



PAGE 



Ideas on Education. The Embodiment of Luther's 
Ideas in Schools by His Associates. The Revolt and 
Educational Ideas of Zwingli. Calvin's Revolt and His ^ 

Encouragement of Education. The Colleges of Calvin. 
Henry VIII's Revolt and Its Efifect upon Education. 
Foundation of the Society of Jesus. Organization of 
the Jesuits. The Jesuit Colleges. The Jesuit Methods 
of Teaching. Value and Influence of the Jesuit Educa- 
tion. The Organization of the Education of the Port 
Royalists. The Port Royal Course and Method of 
Teaching. La Salle and, the Schools of the Christian 
Brothers. The Aim, Curriculum, and Method of the 
Christian Brothers' Schools. Influence of the Schools of 
the Christian Brothers. Aim and Content of Education 
in the Reformation. Effect of the Reformation upon 
Elementary Education. Effect of the Reformation upon 
the Secondary Schools. I^nfluence of the Reformation 
upon the Universities. T'he Lapse into Formalism. 

CHAPTER XIV 

Early Realism and the Innovators . • 151 

The Rise and Nature of Realism. Humanistic Real- 
ism. Social Realism. The Relations of Humanistic to 
Social Realism. The Influence of the Innovators upon 
Education. The Ritterakademien. The Academies 
in England. The Academies in America. 

CHAPTER XV 



Sense Realism and the Early Scientific Movement . 162 
The Development of the Sciences and Realism. Ba- 
con and His Inductive Method. Bacon's Educational 
Suggestions and Influence. Ratich's Methods. Co- 
menius: His Training and Work. His Series of Latin 
Texts. The Great Didactic. His Encyclopaedic Arrange- 
ment of Knowledge. The Method of Nature. The 



/ 



4 



XVI CONTENTS 

' PAGE 

' Influence of Comenius upon Education. Realistic 
Tendencies in Elementary Schools. Secondary Schools. 
The Universities. 

CHAPTER XVI 

Formal Discipline in Education . . . .179 

Locke's Work and Its Various Classifications. Locke's 
Disciplinary Theory in Intellectual Education. Dis- 
ciplinary Attitude in Moral and Physical Training. 
Origin, Significance, and Influence of the Theory of 
Formal Discipline. Opposition to the Disciplinary 
Theory and More Recent Modification. Locke's Real 
Position on Formal Discipline. 

CHAPTER XVII 



V 



Education in the American Colonies . . . 187 

v/' American Education a Development from European. 

Conditions in Europe from Which American Education 
Sprang. Colonial School Organization: The Aristocratic 
Type in Virginia. The Parochial Schools in New Nether- 
lands. Sectarian Organization of Schools in Pennsyl- 
vania. Town Schools in Massachusetts. Education 
in the Other Colonies. 

PART IV 
MODERN TIMES 

CHAPTER XVIII 

Growth of the Democratic Ideal in Education 203 

The Revolt from Absolutism. The Two Epochs in 
I the Eighteenth Century. Voltaire and the Encyclo- 

pedists. Rousseau and His Times. Rousseau's 
Works. 



CONTFNrS XVll 

CHAPTER XIX 

PAGE 

1 RALisM IN Education . . . . . .210 

The Influence of Rousseau's Naturalism. Naturalis- 
tic Basis of the Entile. The Five Books of the Emile. 
Estimate of the Entile. The Sociological Movements in 
Modem Education. TheScientific Movement inModem 
Education. The Psychological Movements in Modern 
Education. The Spread of Rousseau's Doctrines. De- 
velopment of Basedow's Educational Reforms. Text- 
books and Other Works. Course and Methods of the 
Philanthropinum. Influence of the Philanthropinum. 

CHAPTER XX 

Philanthropy in Education 230 

Reconstructive Tendencies of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury. The Rise of Charity Schools in England. The 
Schools of the S. P. C. K. Other Charity Schools. The 
Charity Schools of the S. P. G. Charity Schools among 
the Pennsylvania Germans. The 'Sunday School' 
Movement in Great Britain. The 'Sunday School'^ 
Movement in the United States. Value of the Instruc- 
tion in ' Sunday Schools.' The Schools of the Two Moni- 
torial Societies. Value of the Monitorial System in Eng- 
land. Results of the Monitorial System in the United 
States. The 'Infant Schools' in France. The 'Infant 
Schools' in England. 'Infant Schools' in the United 
states. The Importance of PhUanthropic Education. 

CHAPTER XXI 

Ti' Period of Transition in American Education . 251 
Evolution of Public Education in the United States, 
^ise of the Common School in Virginia. Similar Devel- 
>pments in the Other Southern States. Evolution of 
^ublic Education in New York. New York City. De- 
"■elopment of Systems of Education in Pennsylvania and 



J 



XVUl Ct'NTENTS 

PACK 

the Other Middle States. Decline of Education in Mas- 
sachusetts. Developments in the Other New England 
States. The Extension of Educational Organization to 
the Northwest. Condition of the Common Schools 
Prior to the Awakening. 

CHAPTER XXII 

Observation and Industrial Training in Education 276 

V Pestalozzi as the Successor of Rousseau. Pestalozzi's 

Philanthropic and Industrial Ideals. His Industrial 
School at Neuhof and the Leonard and Gertrude. His 
School at Stanz and Beginning of His Observational 
Methods. Continuation of His Methods at Burgdorf, 
and Eow Gertrude Teaches Her Children. The 'Institute* 
at Yverdon and the Culmination of the Pestalozzian 
Methods. Pestalozzi's Educational Aim and Organiza- 
tion. His General Method. The Permanent Influence of 
Pestalozzi. The Spread of Pestalozzian Schools and 
Methods through Europe. Pestalozzianism in the 
United States. Pestalozzi's Industrial Training Con- 
tinued by Fellenberg. The Agricultural School and 
Other Institutions at Hofwyl. Industrial Training in the 
Schools of Europe. Industrial Institutions in the 
United States. 

CHAPTER XXni 

Development of Public Education in the United States 302 
The Third Period in American Education. Early 
Leaders in the Common School Revival. Work of James 
L G. Carter. Horace Mann as Secretary of the Massachu- 
setts Board. The Educational Suggestions and Achieve- 
ments of Mann. Henry Barnard's Part in the Educa- 
tional Awakening. Barnard as Secretary of the Con- 
necticut State Board. Commissioner of Common 
Schools in Rhode Island. State Superintendent of 
Schools in Connecticut. Barnard's American Journal 



CONTENTS XIX 



PAGX 



/ 



of Education. First United States Commissioner of 
Education. Value of Barnard's Educational Collections. 
Educational Development in New England since the 
Revival. Influence of the Awakening upon the Middle 
States. Public Education in the West. Organization of 
State Systems in the South. Development of the Ameri- 
can System of Education. 

CHAPTER XXIV 

Development of Educational Practice . . . 333 
Froebel and Herbart as Disciples of Pestalozzi. The ^ 
Early Career and Writings of Herbart. Work at Konigs- 
berg and Gottingen. Herbart's Psychology. The Aim, 
Content, and Method. The Value and Influence of 
Herbart's Principles. The Extension of His Doctrines 
in Germany. Herbartianism in the United States. 
Froebel's Early Life. His Experiences at Frankfort, 
Yverdon, and Berlin. The School at Keilhau. Develop- 
ment of the Kindergarten. Froebel's Fundamental 
Concept of 'Unity.' Motor Expression as His Method. 
The Social Aspect of Education. The Kindergarten. 
The Value and Influence of Froebel's Principles. The 
Spread of Froebelianism through Europe. The Kinder- / 
garten in the United States. The Relative Influence of \/ 
Pestalozzi, Herbart, and Froebel. 

CHAPTER XXV 

The Development of Modern Systems -370 

National Systems of Education in Europe and Canada. 
The Beginning of State Control in Prussia. Educational 
Achievements of Frederick the Great. Educational In- 
fluence of Zedlitz. Foundation of the Ministry of Edu- 
cation and Further Progress. The Elementary System. 
The Secondary System. Higher Education. Educa- 
tional Development in France. The Primary School 



\ 



XX CONTENTS 

PAGE 

System. The Secondary System. The Institutions of 
Higher Education. Centralized Administration of 
the French Education. Early Development of English 
Education. Educational Movements in the Nineteenth 
Century. Subsequent Educational Movements. De- 
velopment of Education in the Dominion of Canada. 
The Public School System of Ontario. The System of 
Ecclesiastical Schools in Quebec. 

CHAPTER XXVI 

The Scientific Movement and the Curriculum . . 397 
The Development of the Natural Sciences in Modern 
Times. The Growth of Inventions and Discoveries in 
the Nineteenth Century. Herbert Spencer and Wkat 

* Knowledge is of Most Worth. Advocacy of the Sciences 
by Huxley and Others. The Disciplinary Argument for 
the Sciences. Introduction of the Sciences into Educa- 
tional Institutions in Germany, France, England, and 
the United States. Interrelation of the Scientific with 
the Psychological and Sociological Movements. 

CHAPTER XXVII 

Present Day Tendencies in Education . . . 418 

Recent Educational Progress. The Growth of Indus- 
trial Training. Industrial Schools in Europe. Industrial 
Training in the United States. Commercial Education 
in Europe and America. Recent Emphasis upon Agri- 
cultural Training. Moral Training in the Schools To- 
day. The Development of Training for Mental Defec- 
tives. Education of the Deaf and Blind. Recent 
Development of Educational Method; Dewey's Experi- 
mental School. Other Experiments in Method. The 
Montessori Method. The Statistical Method and 
Mental Measurements in Education. Education and 
the Theory of Evolution. Enlarging Conceptions of 
the Function of Education. 



CONTENTS XXI 

CHAPTER XXVIII 

PAGE 

Retrospect and Prospect 441 

The Development of Individualism. The Harmoniza- 
tion of the Individual and Society 
Index . . 447 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Plate Fig. Opposite Page 

1. I. Elders explaining to young men of an Australian 

tribe at the ' initiatory ceremonies ' 8 

2. A Hindu school in the open air, with the village 
schoolmaster teaching boys to write on a 
strip of palm leaf with an iron stylus 8 

2. 3. The palcBStra in education at Athens 14 

4. The didascaleum in education at Athens 14 

3. 5. Roman school materials 36 

6. Scene at a ludus or Roman elementary school . . 36 

4. 7. A monk in the scriptorium 56 

8. A monastic school 56 

5. 9. The temple of wisdom ; an allegorical representa- 

tion of the mediaeval course of study 72 

6. 10. The lecture in mediaeval universities 80 

II. The disputation in mediaeval universities 80 

7. 12 and 13. Preliminaries and termination of a com- 

bat in the education of chivalry 86 

14. Boys playing tournament with a 'quintain' or 

dummy man 86 

8. 15. Apprenticeship training in a gild 92 

16. GUd school at Stratford, where Shakespeare 

learned 'little Latin and less Greek' 92 

9. 17. Great English Public Schools: Winchester and 

Eton 120 

10. 18. Education of the Jesuits: Jesuit College at 
Regensburg and diagram of a Jesuit school- 
room 136 

xxiii 



XXIV ILLUSTRATIONS 

Plate Fig. Opposite Page 

11. 19. School of the Christian Brothers at Rouen. . . . 146 

20. A Protestant school in a German village of the 

sixteenth century 146 

12. 21. A page from the Or 6 w Pic/«5 of Comenius, illus- 

trating a lesson on a trade 170 

13. 22. Town school at Dedham (Massachusetts) with 

watch-tower, built in 1648 198 

23. Boston Latin School, founded in 1635 198 

24. The buildings of Harvard College, erected in 

1675, 1699, and 1720 198 

14. 25. The chUd as a miniature adult 228 

26. A naturalistic school 228 

15. 27. A monitorial schoolroom 242 

28. Pupils reciting to monitors 242 

29. Monitor inspecting slates 242 

16. 30. A 'kitchen school' 268 

31. A colonial ' summer school ' 268 

32. The first 'academy,' founded by Benjamin 

Franklin at Philadelphia in 1750 268 

17. 33. 'Father' Pestalozzi at Stanz 282 

34. The 'table of units' of Pestalozzi 282 

18. 35. Court of FeUenberg's Agricultural Institute . . . 298 
36. General view of FeUenberg's schools and work- 
shops 298 

19. 37- James G. Carter 312 

38. Horace Mann 312 

39. Henry Barnard 312 

40. Francis W. Parker 312 

20. 41. The first high school, established at Boston in 

1821 332 

42. The University of Michigan in 1855 332 

21. 43. 'The Carpenter' from Froebel's Mo/Aer P/ay.. . 360 



ILLUSTRATIONS XXV 

Plate Fig. Opposite Page 

22. 44. Jean Jacques Rousseau 368 

45. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi 368 

46. Johann Friedrich Herbart 368 

47. Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel 368 

In text. 48. Diagram of German education 380 

In text. 49. Diagram of French education 392 

In text. 50. Diagram of English education 392 

23. 51. Charles Darwin 404 

52. Herbert Spencer 404 

53. Thomas H. Huxley 404 

54. Charles W. Eliot 404 

In text. 55. Diagram of vocational education of boys in 

Germany 424 

24. 56. Indian house constructed in Dewey's experi- 

mental school 436 

57. Part of the Thomdike Writing Scale 436 



FOREWORD 

Each chapter in this book will be prefaced by an Out- 
line, or generalized statement of the ideas to be included 
in it. Logically such an epitome is needed at the begin- 
ning as well as at the end of the chapter. At the begin- 
ning, it serves as a hypothetical or tentative generaHza- 
tion of the facts; at the end, as a conclusion whose truth 
has been tested in the light of these facts and accepted 
with conviction. 

By having this outline in mind when he studies the 
facts, the student is enabled not only to see that the 
general statements are verified and made more significant 
by the details, but at the same time to organize the 
facts with reference to the generalization, and thereby 
secure an easier control of them, and, through the rela- 
tion of each to the others, discover a fuller meaning in 
them all. Then, after this study of the details has estab- 
lished the truth of the outline and enriched its meaning, 
he can review the outline and fix it in mind as the con- 
clusion of the chapter. 



\ 



PART I 
ANCIENT TIMES 



A STUDENTS HISTORY OF 
EDUCATION 

CHAPTER I 

THE EARLIEST EDUCATION 

OUTLINE 

Even a brief survey of the history of education may greatly 
broaden one's view. 

Starting with primitive man, we find that his training aims only 
at the necessities of Ufe, and is acquired informally through the 
elders and the medicine-men. 

In Oriental education, the next stage in progress, illustrated by 
India, a traditional knowledge is acquired through memoriter and 
imitative methods. 

While Oriental, Jewish education afforded greater development 
of individuaUty, but it was late in organizing schools, memoriter 
in methods, and restricted in content. 

Thus all education before the day of the Greeks was largely non- 
progressive. 

The Value of the History of Education.— The His- Bjeadii of 

"^ ^ ^ ^ view obtained. 

tory of Education from the earliest times should contrib- 
ute largely to one's br^dth of viewand prove a study 
of the greatest liberal culture. A record of typical in- 
stances of the moral, aesthetic, and intellectual develop- 
ment of man in all lands and at all periods should cer- 
tainly enlarge one's vision and enable him to appreciate 
more fully the part that education has played in the 

3 



4 A student's history of education 

progress of civilization. Such cultural values may be 
found even in a limited survey of the world's educational 
development. 
Space and j^g Treatment in This Book.— And this is all that 

perspective 

here given to will be undertaken here. For, while valuable as a liberal 

subject matter. . , . . . . 

study, the History of Education finds its justification 
chiefly in the degree to which it functions in the profes- 
sional training of a teacher, and it will be necessary in a 
brief treatise to omit or pass over hastily much that 
might be of interest and value in a more complete ac- 
count of the development of civilization. Therefore, the 
amount of space and the perspective afforded the various 
peoples, epochs, and leaders must here be determined in 
large measure by the part they have played in the evolu- 
tion of educationaLinstitutions and practices, and by the 
light their jiistory sheds upon the aim, organization, 
content, and method of education to-day. At times, too, 
the history of a single epoch, state, or educational leader 
will be selected as a type, to the exclusion of others 
equally important, and treated with considerable inten- 
siveness, instead of describing all sides of the subject 
with encyclopaedic monotony. Now the first historical 
epoch to leave a real impress upon modern practice is 
that of Athens at its height. Hence a mere statement of 
the sahent features of education preceding that period 
is all that can be afiforded in this brief survey. A detailed 
account of the educational processes used by savage 
tribes. Oriental nations, and even Judaea may prove 
interesting and important in other connections, but it 
must here be largely curtailed. 

Training _,, . .. . . , 

through elders Primitive Education. — There is httle to be noted 

and medicine- .,,,.. r ,i • 'j.- i 

men ties the m the training of the young among primitive peoples, 



THE EARLIEST EDUCATION 5 

save that it is intended largely for the satisfaction of savage to the 

° •' present. 

immediate wants — food, clothing, and shelter. Nat- 
urally no such actual institution as a school has yet been 
evolved, but the training is transmitted informally by the 
parents. The method used is simply that of example 
and imitation, or, more specifically, 'trial and success.' 
But a more conscious and formal education is given at 
puberty through the 'initiatory ceremonies' (Fig. i). 
In these rites the youths are definitely instructed by the 
older men about their relation to the spirits and the 
totem animals, subordination to the elders, the relations 
of the sexes, the sacredness of the clansman's obHgations, 
and other traditional usages. Strict silence is enjoined 
upon them concerning this information, and to impress 
it upon their minds, and test their endurance, they are 
required to fast for several days and are often tortured / 

and mutilated. As the savage does not clearly distin- / 
guish between himself and the tribe to which he belongs, 
there is practically no development of individuality, and 
since the race has not yet learned to treasure its experi- 
ence in writing, he has no record of past experience and 
is virtually tied to the present. 

Oriental Education. — The nations of the ancient Vocational 

training and 

Orient — Egypt, Babyloma, Assyria, China, India, and class divisions 

-p. . 1-1 1 1.1 of the Orient. 

Persia — may be said to represent the next higher stage 
in dvihzation. Their systems of education prepare 
mostly for vocations, and are not sufl&ciently advanced 
to undertake a training for manhood or citizenship. 
But since a division of labor has now been evolved, the 
training has become more clearly differentiated and fits 
for specific occupations. In this way, class divisions, 
or fiven castes, have generally arisen in society, and the 



A student's history of education 



young people are educated according to the position in 
life they desire, or are required to fill. As an illustration 
of this stage of development, we may consider somewhat 
in detail the social environment and education of India. 
anrca/iffy^s" ^n^ia: Its Religion and Castes.— In India, largely 
tern in India, g^g a result of the debilitating climate, there was formu- 
lated about 1 200 B. C. a dreamy philosophy, according 
to which nothing except Brahma, the one universal 
spirit, really exists. \ While men would seem to be tem- 
porarily allowed a separate existence of their own, it 
was held that they should remain inactive as far as pos- 
sible and seek an ultimate absorption into the great 
Eternal Spirit. ' Although somewhat modified by the 
infusion of Buddhism, between 500 B. C. and 500 A. D., 
and by the British occupation of the peninsula during 
the nineteenth century, this mystic and static religion^ 
still dominates in India. Connected with it is the caste 
system, by which the people are divided into four heredi- 
tary classes. These are (i) the brahmins, ot. sacerdotal 
class, which includes all those trained for law, medicine, 
teaching, and other professional occupations; (2) the 
warriors, or mihtary and administrative caste; (3) the 
industrial group; and (4) the sudras, or menial caste. 
Altogether outside the social order are the pariahs, or 
outcasts. The caste system is exceedingly strict. One 
may fall into a lower caste, but he cannot rise, and loss 
of caste by one person in a family will degrade all the 
rest. 

The Hindu Education. — Hence Hindu education has 
always endeavored to fill the pupils with the tenets of 
their religion, and so prepare them for absorption into 
the Infinite, rather than for activities in this life, andi to 



THE EARLIEST EDUCATION 7 

preserve the caste system and keep all within the sphere 
of their occupation. The three upper castes are, there- 
fore, supposed to gain a knowledge of certain sacred Knowledge of 
works, especially the lourVedas or books of 'knowledge,' and^^rainhig^m 
the six An^as on pliilosophical and scientific subjects, ^^^s.^"*^ ^^*^'" 
and the Coc^e of Mann, which is a collection of traditional 
customs; but few, outside the brahmin class, are ever 
allowed to take advantage of this opportunity. The 
warriors are expected to pay more attention to martial 
exercises, and the industrial caste to acquire through 
apprenticeship the arts necessary for its hereditary oc- 
cupations. Sudras, pariahs, and women are generally 
allowed no education. Except the sudras, all the castes 
obtain elementary education from a study of the laws, 
traditions, and customs of the country through the me- 
dium of the family, and more recently through village 
schools held in the open air (Fig. 2). The higher educa- 
tion is largely carried on in brahminic colleges, called 
pa rts had s, and, as also in the case of the elementary work, 
the teachers have to be brahmins. Since all learning has 
been preserved by tradition, the chief methods of in- 
struction are those of mem_orizing^and imitation, Even 
the later texts are so written as to be easily committed, 
and the Hnes are sung aloud by the pupils until they 
have memorized them. Writing is learned by imitating 
the teacher's copy on the sand with a stick, then on 
palm leaves with a stylus (Fig. 2), and finally on plane 
leaves with ink. 

Efifect of the Hindu Education. — Hence, among the Much tradj- 
Hindus education is forbidden to ninety-five per cent of but no progress 

■, , . ^ r • ^ ... rCiultS. 

the population, and, as tar as it does exist, it is a mere 
stuffing of the memory. It concerns itself but little with 



8 A student's history of education 

mental culture or with preparation for real living. The 
brahmins have handed down considerable traditional 
learning, grammar, phonetics, rhetoric, logic, 'Arabic' 
notation, algebra, astronomy, and medicine, but new 
knowledge of any sort is barred. The Hindus still plow 
with sticks of wood, and their crops are harvested and 
threshed by devices equally primitive. They bake bricks, 
work metals, and weave cloth, but with the same kind of 
appliances that were used by their remote ancestors. 
Until recently, they have been greatly lacking in ambi- 
tion, self-reliance, and personal responsibility, and have 
not yet come to any feeling of solidarity or national unity. 
To them prosperity and progress are foreign ideas. 
India as Typical of the Orient. — The other countries 
tion in bondage of the ancient Orient never fixed their social classes in so 
^ ^^^ ' hard and fast a manner, and have never included so 
elaborate a philosophy among the products of their 
culture. But India may well be considered broadly 
typical of the stage of development in the Orient. Cer- 
tain common features appear in the education of all the 
nations there. In the system of each, the classes below 
the sacerdotal or priestly are given Httle intellectual 
education, and the women none at all, but both are 
trained by apprenticeship in their vocations. Actual 
schools, both elementary and higher, have been insti- 
tuted; and the latter, except in China, are conducted at 
temples or priestly colleges by members of the sacerdotal 
class. The educational content is naturally traditional. 
It is, for the most part, ensured against change by being 
embalmed in sacred books, such as the Vedas. The 
educational method consists largely in the memorizing of 
the text and imitation of the copy set, and little attempt 




Fig. I. — Elders explaininjj; to young men of an Australian tribe at the 

'initiatory ceremonies.' 
(Reproduced from Spencer and Gillen's Across Australia.) 




Fig. 2. — A Hindu school in the open air, with the village schoolmaster 

teaching boys to write on a strip of palm leaf with an iron stylus. 

(Reproduced from Things as They Are by Amy Wils'on-Carmichael, by permission of the 

Fleming H. Reveil Company.) 






THE EARLIEST EDUCATION 9 

is made to give a reason for the customs and traditional 
knowledge taught. Hence, while individuality has 
begun to emerge, it is suppressed by every agency possi- 
ble; and, although these peoples have largely overcome 
the primitive enslavement to nature and the present, 
they are completely in bondage to the past. 

Jewish Education. — The Jews are classed among 
the nations of the Orient, but they fornjulated loftier 
aims and have exerted more influence upon modern 
ideals in education. While their theology greatly devel- veiopment of 
oped in the course of their history, from the first they p^''^°°^ ^' 
held to an oljiical conception of God, and the chief goal of 
their education was the building of moral and religious 
character. Not until after the Babylonish captivity 
(586-536 B. C), however, did they estabHsh actual 
schools. Before that, children were given an informal 
training in the traditions and observances of their religion 
by their parents. But they brought back from Babylon 
the idea of institutions for higher training and started 
such schools through their synagogues. In the second 
century B. C. the founding of elementary schools also 
began, and eventually the Jews made education well-nigh 
universal. The beneficial effect of this training is seen in 
the respect shown by the Jews for their women, their kind 
treatment of children, and their reverence for parents. 
The defects of their education appear in the stereotyped 
and formal way in which the reUgious material came to 
be interpreted, and the consequent hostility to science ^^^ oriental 
and art, except as they threw light on some religious fes- and non- 

^ ir J o o ^ progressive. 

tival or custom. Although appeal was made to various 
types of memory, systems of mnemonics devised, and 
other good pedagogical features suggested, their methods 



V 



lo A student's history of education 

of instruction were largely memoriter. The Jewish system 
of education, as a whole, afforded a greater development 
of personality than that of the other Oriental nations, and 
through it have been spread some of the world's most 
exalted religious conceptions. Nevertheless, it did not 
depart much from its traditions and the past, and to this 
extent it may be classed with the training of the primitive 
tribes and of the Oriental nations as predominantly 
non-progressive. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

For general works, see Graves, F. P., History of Education before 
the Middle Ages (Macmillan, 1909), chaps. I-XI; Monroe, P., 
Text-book in the History of Education (Macmillan, 1905), chaps. 
I-II. A general interpretation of the evolution of education in 
savagery and barbarism is also given in Laurie, S. S., Pre-Christian 
Education (Longmans, Green, 1909), pp. 1-207; Morgan, L. H., 
Ancient Society (Holt, 1907), Part I; and Taylor, H. 0., Ancient 
Ideals (Macmillan, 1913), vol. I, chaps. I-V. An illustration of 
primitive training of especial interest to American students is 
found in Spencer, F. C., Education of the Pueblo Child (Columbia 
University, Department of Philosophy and Psychology, vol. 7, 
no. i) ; and a detailed description of the puberty rites of a variety 
of savage tribes, in Webster, H., Primitive Secret Societies, (Mac- 
millan, 1908), chaps. I-V. A more complete account of the Hindu 
philosophy and education appears in Dutt, R. C, Civilization of 
India (Dent, London), and Taylor, H. O., Ancient Ideals (Mac- 
millan, 1913), vol. I, chaps, in and IV. A systematic statement 
of the Jewish training has been adapted from a German work, in 
Leipziger, H. M., Education of the Jews (New York Teachers Col- 
lege, 1890), and a more detailed account worked out in Spiers, B., 
School System of the Talmud (Stock, London, 1898). 



CHAPTER II 

THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS 

OUTLINE 

The Spartan training was intended to serve the state by making 
warriors, and little attention was paid to intellectual education. 

At first the Athenian education was also mainly concerned in 
serving the state. For the earliest stage of the boy's education, 
there were schools of two types, — one for intellectual training, as 
well as one for physical; from fifteen to eighteen a more advanced 
physical training was given; and then, for two years, a preparation 
for military hfe. 

After the Persian wars, the Athenians adopted ideals of educa- 
tion affording a larger recognition of individualism. The sophists 
introduced the new educational practices, and went to an extreme 
in their individualism. 

The systematic philosophers,— Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, 
tried to mediate the outworn institutional education and the 
extreme individualism. Socrates held that the 'sophistic' knowl- 
edge was only 'opinion,' and that the more universal knowledge 
could be reachedln every person by stripping off his individuaUstic 
opinion. 

But Plato maintained that only the intellectual class could at- 
tain to knowledge. For them he formulated a new course of 
study, in addition to that in vogue, consisting of mathematical 
subjects and dialectic. Aristotle held that the training for every 
one before seven should be bodily; up to fourteen, the irrational 
soul should be trained; and until twenty-one, the rational. While 
Plato and Aristotle had little effect upon educational practice at 
the time, they have since greatly influenced education. 

After Aristotle, there arose individuahstic schools of philosophy 

II 



/ 



12 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

and formal schools of rhetoric, and out of them universities sprang 
up. Then Greek culture and education spread throughout the 
world. 



\ 



Progressive Nature of Greek Education. — Real educa- 
First develop- tional piogrcss began with the Greeks. In their training 
viduaiity aV gradually appeared considerable regard for individuality. 
G^reeks.^°^°"° They were the first people whose outlook seems to have 
been toward the future rather than the past, and they 
first made a serious attempt to promote human develop- 
ment in accordance with a remote ideal progressively 
revealed. As a result, they not only gave a wonderful 
impetus to educational practice in their own time, but 
ever since then the world has had constant recourse to 
them for inspiration and counsel. While this intellectual 
emancipation did not appear to any extent before its 
development among the Athenians in the middle of the 
fifth century B. C, well-planned systems of education 
existed in Greece several centuries before this and paved 
the way for the system in Athens during the Age of 
Pericles. 

Spartan Education : Its Aim and Early Stages. — Among 
the states of ancient Greece, Sparta possessed the earliest 
education of which we have any extended information. 
Its citizens dwelt in the midst of hostile peoples they had 
subjugated, and this made it necessary to produce a race 
of hardy and patriotic warriors. Strength, courage, and 
obedience to the laws were held as the aiin t)f education. 
Service to state The Spartan educational system was intended to serve 

the object. . . \ ," 

the state, and the rights of the individual were given little 
or no consideration. State control began jwith birth. 
The infant was immediately inspected by a council of 



•y\ 



THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS I3 

elders, and, if he were sickly or deformed, he was 'ex- Exposure of 

. . sickly infants. 

posed to die in the mountains; but if he appeared 
physically promising, he was formally adopted by the 
state and left with his mother for rearing until seven. 
At that age the boys were placed in charge of a state 
officer and ate and slept in a kind of pubhc barracks. 
Here their life became one of constant drill and dis- 
cipline. In addition to hard beds, scanty clothing, and 
little food, they were given a graded course in gymnastics. Barracks 
Besides ball-playing, dancing, and the pentaMum — boys, 
running, jumping, throwing the discus, casting the jave- 
lin, and wrestling — the exercises included boxing, and 
even the brutal pancratium, in which any means of 
overcoming one's antagonist — kicking, gouging, and bit- 
ing, as well as wrestling and boxing — was permitted. 

The Spartan boys, however, received only a little 
informal training in the way of intellectual education, tuai or mord 
They simply committed to memory and chanted the ^''^''^'^s- 
laws of Lycurgus and selections from Homer, and they 
listened to the conversation of the older men during the 
meals at the common table, and were themselves exer- 
cised in giving concise and sensible answers to questions 
put to test their wisdom. Every adult was also required 
to choose as his constant companion or 'hearer' a youth 
to whom he might become an ' inspirer.' 

Training in Youth and Manhood: Results. — When 
a youth reached eighteen, he began the distinctive study 
of warfare. For two years he was trained in the use of 
arms and skirmishing, and every ten days had his courage 
and his physique tested by being wliipped before the 
altar of Artemis. Then he regularly entered the army, ;. 
and for ten years guarded some border fortress and lived training. 



14 A student's history of education 

upon the coarsest of fare. When he became thirty, he 
was considered a man and forced to marry at once, but 
even then he could visit his wife only clandestinely and 
was still obliged to live in common with the boys and 
assist in their training. 

The education of women was very like that of the men. 
While the girls were allowed to live at home, they were 

Similar educa- . 'm i •i^-* '.ii ,i,.i 

tion of girls, given a Similar physical training in the hope that they 
would become the mothers of sturdy sons. Thus the 
Spartan education was shaped entirely with reference to 
the welfare of the state. Their educational system served 
well its purpose of creating strong warriors and devoted 
citizens, but it failed to make for the highest manhood. 
Sparta developed practically no art, literature, or 
philosophy, and produced little that tended to promote 
civilization. She has left to the world little but examples 
of heroism and foolhardiness alike. 

Old Athenian Education: Its Aim and Early Train- 
ing.^For many centuries the Athenian education was 
not unlike the Spartan in promoting the welfare of the 
state without much consideration of individual interests. 
But even in early days Athens felt that the state was 
best served when the individual secured the most com- 
plete personal development. Hence, the Athenian boys 
school^?) the began to receive at seven years of age two kinds of train- 
mshing'^'phy'si- ^^S' — (i) ^^^ petitathlum and other physical exercises in 
U) the^il'Saira- ^^^ palaestra (Fig. 3) or exercising ground, and (2) singing 

leum, furnish- and playing upon the flute or lyre, and reading and writ- 
ing music, 1. J a i- / • \ • 

reading, and ing at the didascdleum (Fig. 4.) or music school. After the 
boy had learned his letters by tracing them in the sand, 
he was taught to copy verses and selections from well- 
known authors, at first upon wax-tablets with a stylus, 



Education at Athens 




Fig. 3. — THt palaestra. 

/ 




Fig. 4. — The didascaleum. 
(Reproduced from illustrations taken from old vases by Freeman in his Schools of Hellas.) 



1 

I THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS 1 5 

and later upon parchment with pen and ink. It was, 
moreover, necessary for the pupils in singing to be taught 
the rhythm and melody, and to understand the poem so 
as to bring out its meaning. Hence the explanations and 
interpretations given by the teachers brought in all the 
learning of the times, and the moral and intellectual 
value of the studies must have been much greater than 
would be suggested by the meagerness of the course. 
Some moral training and discipline were also given the 
boy by a slave called the paedagogus, who conducted him The/>a«f«- 
to school and carried his lyre and other appurtenances. 
This functionary was often advanced in years or in- 
capacitated for other duties by physical disabiUty. 

Training for the Youth. — At fifteen the Athenian 
boy might take physical training of a more advanced Advanced 
character at one of the exercising grounds just outside ing in gyw- 
Athens, which were known as gymnasia. He was now ephebic°course 
permitted to go wherever he wished and become ac- du^g^*^^^ 
quainted with public life through first-hand contact. 
When eighteen the youth took the oath of loyalty to 
Athens, and for two years as an ephehus or cadet con- 
tinued his education with a course in mihtary duties. 
The first year he spent in the neighborhood of Athens and 
formed part of the city garrison, but in the second year 
he was transferred to some fortress on the frontier. At 
twenty the young man became a citizen, but even then 
his training continued through the drama, architecture, 
sculpture, and art that were all about him. 

Effect of the Old Athenian Education. — Little atten- 
tion was, however, given by the Athenians to the educa- ^ttiT Tr^ng 
tion of woman. It was felt that her duties demanded no 
knowledge beyond ordinary skill in household affairs. 



i6 A student's history of education 

With this exception, the Athenian education was superior 
to the Spartan in allowing greater opportunity for indi- 
vidual development and in furnishing a more rounded 
training. Nevertheless, until about the middle of the 
Resemblance fifth century B. C, while differing considerably in degree 
Athenian edu- f^om Sparta, Athens may be grouped with that country 
Spartan" as adhering to the 'old' education, where the individual 

was subordinated to the good of the social whole. 

Causes and Character of the New Athenian Educa- 
tion. — This characterization is, of course, in contrast 
to Greek education in the 'new' period, which is repre- 
sented by Athens alone. This later type of education was 
probably somewhat the result of the gradual rise of 
democratic ideals in Athens, but a more immediate set of 
factors grew out of the Persian wars (492-479 'B. C). 
This extended conflict with a powerful Oriental people, 
possessing a well-organized but widely different body of 
traditions tended to broaden the views of the Athenians 
greatly, and the ensuing political and commercial inter- 
course with a variety of dependent states and nations in 
the Delian League, together with social contact with the 
foreigners from every land that were thronging the 

Extreme in- ° '' o o 

dividuaiism in Streets of Athens, led even more directly to a reconstruc- 
education. tion of practices and beliefs. A rapid transition in the old 
traditions took place and society seems for a time to have 
been sadly disorganized. The old was shattered, and 
while new ideals were being constructed, a groping 
ensued. Although the latitude given the individual was 
destined, as always, to produce progress in the long run, 
and was of great ultimate service to the world, more 
immediately a low ebb in morals at Athens resulted. 
Individualism ran riot. Education reflected the condi- 



THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS 1 7 

tions of the period. Its ideals became more and more 
individualistic. The times demanded a training that 
would promote the happiness of the individual with 
little consideration for the welfare of the state as a whole. 
The old education seemed narrow and barren of content; 
and there arose a desire for all sorts of knowledge that 
might contribute to one's advancement, whether it 
increased his social usefulness or not. Skill in debate and 
public speaking was especially sought, because of the 
unusual opportunity for personal achievement in politics. 
) , The Sophists and Their Training. — To meet these study of gram- 

matical and 

new demands, a set of teachers known as the sophists rhetorical sub- 

. "tleties, in the 

came mto prommence. Ihey professed to tram young place of the old 
men for a pohtical career, and some of them even claimed 
to teach any subject whatsoever, or how to defend 
either side of an argument. These pretensions, to- 
gether with their charging a fee for their services, con- 
trary to Athenian custom, seriously offended the more 
conservative of the citizens of Athens. But many of 
the first sophists afforded an honest and careful training. 
The effect of their teaching was especially felt by the 
adolescents in the gymnasium stage of education, since 
they were ambitious to distinguish themselves politically. 
The physical training that had hitherto dominated the 
gymnasium course gave way to a study of grammatical 
and rhetorical subtleties, and whenever a sophist ap- 
peared in the street, market-place, or house; the young 
men crowded about him to borrow from his store of 
experience and wisdom, and acquire his method of argu- 
ment. To a less degree the same influence was felt in the 
lower schools and by the cadets and younger citizens. 
The exercises of the palaestra were no longer as rigorous. 



i8 A student's history of education 

and existed for the sake of individual health and pleasure 
rather than for the making of citizens. The literary 
work of the didascaleum came to include, besides the 
Homeric epics, a wide range of didactic, reflective, and 
lyric poetry, with a superabundance of discussions. In 
music the old patriotic and religious songs sung to the 
simple Doric airs and accompanied upon the seven- 
stringed lyre, were replaced by rhythms of great diffi- 
culty, like the Lydian and Phrygian, and by compli- 
cated instruments of all sorts. 
Ih?oirsub°"' '^^^^^ Extreme Individualism.— All this inroaid upon 
ordination of ^\^q ^^ne honorcd curriculum shows how fully the soph- 

the individual ^ •' ^ 

to the state, ists embodied the individualism of the times. Although 
they held no body of doctrine common to them all, they 
were generally at one in their position of extreme indi- 
vidualism. They often went so far as to insist that there 
could not safely be any universal criteria in knowledge 
or morals; that no satisfactory interpretation of life 
could be made for all, but that every fact and situation 
should be subject to the judgment of the individual. 
No doubt the formula attributed to Protagoras, "Man 
(i. e. the individual) is the measure of all things, both of 
the seen and the unseen," would have expressed the at- 
titude common to most of them. They but carried to 
its legitimate conclusion the complete reaction from the 
old ideal of subordination of the individual to the state. 
h) The Reactionaries and the Mediators. — Meanwhile, 
the conservative element was making its usual attenipt 
to adjust the unsettled conditions by suggesting a return 
. , to the old. Various schemes had been advanced, even 

The attitude 

of Pythagoras before the sophists had come into prominence. Of 
anes; these the most complete plan was that of Pythagoras 



THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS IQ 

(about 580-500 B. C). By adopting an analogy from 
the 'harmony' of the celestial bodies and from the rela- 
tion of the powers in the individual to each other, he 
arranged a definite hierarchy in society, so that each 
member should have his proper place, and complete 
harmony and social order should ensue. As the influence 
of the sophists began to be felt, later representatives of 
the reactionary movement, such as the matchless carica- 
turist, Aristophanes (445-380 B. C), began to appear 
and inveigh against the new conditions. But the social 
process can never move backward, and reconstruction 
on some higher plane was needed to overcome the de- 
structive tendencies of the times. To furnish this, was 
the task set themselves by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. rrtes?^piato, 
Like the sophists, they recognized that the traditional ^^^ Anstotle. 
beliefs and sanctions, the old social order, and the former 
ideals and content of education, had been outlived, and 
that the individual could not find truth and morahty 
through an institutional system. At' the same time 
they felt that the extreme individualism of the sophists 
was too negative a basis upon which to build, and that 
a more socialized standard of knowledge and morality 
must be sought. 

The Method of Socrates. — This mediating effort was 
begun by Socrates (469-399 B. C). While he started 
with the formula of Protagoras, he maintained that the 
'man' indicated thereby was not the individual, but 
mankind as a whole. It is not the peculiar view of any 
individual that represents the truth, but the knowledge 
that is the same for everyone. The former, which the 
sophists considered 'knowledge,' Socrates held to be 'Knowledge' 

versus 

only 'opinion,' and declared that the reason men think 'opinion'. 




The 'dialectic' 



20 A student's history of education 

SO differently is because each sees but one side of the truth. 
He believed that everyone could get at universal knowl- 
edge by stripping off individual differences and laying 
bare the essentials upon which all men are agreed. He 
conceived it to be the mission of the philosopher or 
teacher to enable the individual to do this, and he en- 
deavored to deal with the mind of all those with whom he 
came in contact, so that they would form valid conclu- 
of Socrates. sions. By his method, known as the dialectic, or 'con- 
versational,' he first encouraged the individual to make 
a definite statement of his belief, and then, through a 
set of clever questions, caused the person to develop his 
thought, until he became so involved in manifest con- 
tradictions that he was forced to admit that his view had 
been imperfectly formed. He thus caused the individual 
to see that the view he had first expressed was mere 
'opinion' and but a single phase of the universal truth. 
As Socrates further held that morality consists in right 
knowledge and made no distinction between the knowl- 
edge of an action and the impulse to perform it, he strove 
through his methods of developing knowledge to har- 
monize the individual welfare with that of the social 
; group. 
3f' Plato's System of Education for the Three Classes of 
Society. — But the believers in the old traditions and 
institutional morality felt that Socrates was atheistic 
and immoral. They persuaded Athens to give him the 
hemlock, and thus destroyed the man who might have 
proved her savior. A pupil, Plato (427-347 B. C), 
undertook to continue his work, but his aristocratic 
birth and temperament caused him to' underestimate 
the intelligence of the masses. He held that they were 



THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS 21 

incapable of attaining to 'knowledge' — that they pos- 
sessed only 'opinion.' In his most famous dialogue, im\^e Republic 
The Republic, he endeavors to show that the ideal state government 

was to be by 

can exist only when the entire control of the government the intellectual 

class. 

is entrusted to the 'philosophers,' or intellectual class, 
who alone posse'ss 'real knowledge.' Those who are to 
compose the three classes of society Plato would have 
selected during the educational process on the basis of 
their ability. For all boys up to eighteen years of age 
he prescribes an education similar to that in vogue in the 
palaestra, didascaleum, and gymnasium, except that he 
would somewhat expurgate the literary element, and tioa.^ "^" 
would confine the musical training to the simpler melo- 
dies and instruments. The youths who prove capable of 
going beyond this lower education are next to take up 
the cadet training between eighteen and twenty, but Cadet training, 
those who are incapable of further education are to be 
relegated to the industrial class. During the cadet 
period are to be determined those capable of going on 
with the higher education of philosophers, while those 
who here reach their limit become members of the 
military class. 

As Athenian education did not extend beyond the 
twentieth year, Plato is here obliged to invent a new' 
course of study that will enable the future philosophers 

to acquire the habit of speculation. This additional ^is^f educa- 
tion for philos- 

course, he declares, should also be graded, in order that ophers: 
a further test of intellectual and moral qualities may be 
made. Arithmetic, plane and solid geometry, music, and 
astronomy, are to occupy the first ten years of the course, d) mathemati- 
These subjects, however, are not to be studied for calcu- *^' ^^^i^^i 
lation or practical purposes of any sort, but entirely 



22 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



(2) dialectic. 



Return to 
subordination 
of the indi- 
vidual; 

neglect of 
human will; 

failure to see 
all human 
traits in each 
individual; 



no means of 
evolution. 



from the standpoint of theory or the universal relations 
underlying them, since only thus can they furnish a 
capacity for abstract thought. After this, at thirty, the 
young men who can go no further, are to be placed in 
the minor offices of the state, while those who have 
shown themselves capable of the study of dialectic, go 
on with that subject for five years longer. It then be- 
comes the duty of these highest philosophers to guide 
and control the state until they have reached the age of 
fifty, when they may be allowed to retire. 

The Weakness of Plato's System. — Thus, where 
Socrates found the basis of universal truth in everyone, 
Plato held that only one class of people, the most intel- 
lectual, could attain to real knowledge. He, therefore, 
maintained that the philosophers should absolutely guide 
the conduct of the state, and that education should be 
organized with that in view. Plato's ideal state would 
thus become a sort of intellectual oligarchy, and in a 
way was a return to the old principle of subordinating 
the individual to society. The Republic thus quite neg- 
lected human will as a factor in society and assumed 
that men can be moved about in hfe like pieces upon 
the chess board. Plato failed to see, too, that each in- 
dividual really possesses all human characteristics. The-^ 
workers have reason, and the philosophers have passions, 
and a human being is not a man unless all these func- 
tions are his. But even if his scheme had been a 
happy one, the treatise provided no method of evolution 
from current conditions, and if it were further granted 
that this order of things could be established at once, 
Plato put the ban upon all innovation or change, and so 
closed the door to progress^ 



THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS 2$ 

Heilice The Republic was viewed as a visionary concep- 
tion, and had no immediate effect upon education or 
any other institution of Athens. So in his decHning 
years, without denying The Republic as ideal, he wrote 
the ntiore practical dialogue known as The Laws^ In it The Laws of- 

. fered a more 

he welded elements from the educational systems of practical and 
Sparta and older Athens, and reverted to traditions and system of 
ideals not dissimilar to the doctrines of Pythagoras. He 
replaced the philosophers with priests, an hereditary 
ruler, a .superintendent of education, and various other 
ofl&cials; and the course of study reached its height with 
the subject of mathematics, while dialectic was not men- 
tioned. 

His Influence upon Educational Theory and Prac- 
tice. — Thus the efforts of Socrates, as continued by 
Plato, to obtain the benefit of the growing individualism 
for society and education without disrupting them, had 
seemingly come to naugi^t. Nevertheless, Plato has had 
considerable influence upon the thought and practice of w 
men since the Greek period. The ideal society where 
everything is well managed and everyone is in the posi- 
tion for which nature intended him, has ever since the 
day of The Republic been a favorite theme for writers, as 
witness More's Utopia and the New Atlantis of Bacon. Model for later 

Utopias. 

A specific movement that shows the impress of Plato, 
as we shall see later, is the formulation of the more ad- 
vanced studies of the mediaeval 'seven liberal arts' 
under the name of the 'quadrivium.' It is even possible J^^, and^*^^" 
that the whole conception of 'liberal' studies," and so the ^™f^ ^^^' 
doctrine of 'formal discipline' (see p. 182), may be traced 
back to Plato's idea that the mathematical subjects in 
the course for philosophers should never be studied from 

J 



J 



24 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

a practical point of view. On the whole, Plato has been 
a factor in educational theory and practice that ciannot 
be overlooked. 

Aristotle's Ideal State and Education. — A more prac- 
tical attempt to unify the new with the old in Athenian 
society and education was made by Aristotle (386- 
322 B. C), the pupil of Plato. From his father, the court 
physician at Macedon, and from his study under Plato, 
Aristotle obtained an excellent scientific training, which 
is evident in the way he approaches his problems. It 
is in his Politics especially that he discusses the ideal state 
and the training of a citizen. His method gi investiga- 
tion to determine the nature of this ideal state is induc- 
tive, and before formulating his conception of it, he 
makes a critical analysis of Plato's Republic and Laws, 
and analyzes the organization of many other states, both 
ideal and actual. He concludes that a monarchy is 
Theoretically a theoretically the best type of ffovernment>. but that the 

monarchy, but •; . 

practically a form most likely to be exercised for the good of the gov- 

best. erned is the democracy. He then considers in detail 

the best natural and social conditions for a state. Among 

these practical considerations is the proper education 

to make its citizens virtuous. 

Education nee- Since virtue is of two kinds, moral or practical, and 

essary for 7 r- 7 

virtue. Intellectual or speculative, and the former is merely the 

stepping-stone to the latter, the education needed for 
the virtue of the state must not, like that of Sparta, be 
purely a training for war and practical affairs. In mark- 
ing off the periods of education, Aristotle holds that "the 

Training of the care of the body ought to precede that of the soul, and 
the training of the impulsive side of the soul ought to 
come next; nevertheless, the care of it must be for the 



THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS 25 

sake of the reason, and the care of the body for the sake 

of the soul." The development of the body he wishes to 

start even before birth by having the legislator "consider sensible advice. 

at what age his citizens should marry and who are fit 

to marry." Also he deems it necessary to sanction the 

usage of his time of 'exposing' (see p. 13) all deformed 

and weakly children. However, his advice concerning 

the food, clothing, and exercise of children is humane and 

in keeping with the best modern hygiene. 

The training of the body is a preparation for the formal 
schooling, which is to last from seven to twenty-one. 
This is divided into two periods by puberty, the first 
to be devoted to the training of the impulsive or irra- 
tional side of the soul, and the second to that of the ra- -^jationai^^ ^^^ 
tional side. Education, he claims, should be public, as soul — 
in Sparta, for it is the business of the state to see that its 
citizens are all rendered virtuous. However, the in- 
dustrial classes, not being citizens, have no need of edu- 
cation, and women are to be limited in the scope of their 
training. The course of study for the irrational period 
is largely the same as that in use at Athens, — gymnastics, 
music, and Hterary subjects, although he recommends gymnastics, 
some reforms. Gymnastics is intended for self-control and literary sub- 

iccts. 

beauty of form, and the making of neither athletes nor 
warriors should be the object, since the training of. the 
former exhausts the constitution, and that of the latter is 
brutalizing. The Uterary subjects, which with Aristotle 
includes drawing, as well as reading and writing, are not 
to be taught merely for utiUtarian reasons. Music is to 
be used not so much for relaxation or intellectual enjoy- 
ment as for higher development. Since- melodies that af- 
ford pleasure are connected with noble ideas, and those 



26 A student's history of education 

which give us pain are joined to debased ideas, the study 
of music "cultivates the habit of forming right judgments, 
and of taking delight in good dispositions and noble 
actions." Another moral effect of music is that it pro- 
duces katharsis or 'purification'; that is, by arousing in 
us pity and fear for humanity at large, it lifts us out 
of ourselves and affords a safe vent for our emotions. 

Such was to be the training for the body and for the 

irrational period, but how Aristotle would have advised 

Training of fhe ^j^^^ ^j^g education of the rational soul be carried on can 

rational soul, — 

mathematical only be surmised, since the treatise breaks off suddenly 

subjects, dia- ... 

lectic, and at this pomt. It IS probable that it would have included 
a higher training in mathematical subjects and dialectic 
similar to that advocated by Plato, and, from Aristotle's 
own predilections, he would have been likely also to add 
some of the physical and biological sciences. 

The Permanent Value of His Work. — Thus Aristotle, 
like Plato, endeavored to work out the harmonizing of 
individual with social interests by the creation of an 
ideal state, and he similarly failed to answer the demand 
of the times. His work was much less visionary than 
The Republic, but he did not fully recognize that the 
day of the small isolated states of Greece, with their 
narrow prescriptions for patriotism and social order, 
bonda^e^to his had passed forever. Hence he hoped to achieve some 
times. reform by departing but little from existing conditions 

and reading a philosophy into them, and this bondage 
to the times prevented his educational system from mak- 
ing any advance beyond that of Plato. But while Aris- 
totle had Httle effect upon the society of the times, his 
works have since been considered of great value, and the 
methods that he formulated have been most important. 



THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS 27 

He not only started, or made the first great contribu- 
tions to a number of sciences, but he crystallized the to°sdences?° 
laws of thought itself. Also, as instruments to assist in o7kws^oT° 
fashioning the various sciences, Aristotle invented a com- thought, and 

° ' invention of 

plete system of terminology, and created such pairs as terminology, 
■matter' and 'form,' 'mean' and 'extreme,' and 'cause' ' 
and 'effect,' and such convenient expressions as 'prin- 
ciple,' 'maxim,' 'habit,' and 'faculty.' A more impor- 
tant effect of Aristotle's ideas has been that upon the 
formulation of doctrine in the Christian Church. After cCdI^doc-°* 
the spread of Mohammedanism, which had largely ab- '^'^^• 
sorbed the AristoteHan principles, the Church, though 
at first bitterly opposing them, finally found it impossible 
to suppress them, and began to clothe her own doctrine 
in their dress. The greatest of the scholastics began to 
study Aristotelianism, and soon made it the effective 
weapon of the Church by reducing all human knowledge 
to a finished AristoteHan system with theology at the 
top. 

The Post-Aristotelian Schools of Philosophy. — But 
the harmonizing attempt of Aristotle was fruitless. Like 
Socrates and Plato, he failed to reconcile with the old 
and settled order the ever-expanding movement toward 
individualism. Thus all efforts to control the indi- 
vidualistic and disintegrating tendencies of the times 
were in vain, and the conquest of the Greek states by 
Philip of Macedon (358-338 B. C.) was only symptomatic 
of the complete collapse of corporate Hfe and the inability 
to reconstruct it successfully. All possibility of social 
unity disappeared, and philosophy no longer considered 
the individual from the standpoint of membership in 
society. It was occupied no further with the harmoniza- 



28 A student's history of education 

tion of the individual and tlie state, but concerned itself 

with the welfare of the individual and the art of living. 

Triumph of Individualism was completely triumphant, and educa- 

individualism. 

tion was considered simply as a means to personal de- 
velopment or happiness, without regard to one's fellows. 
The new theories of Ufe and education were formulated 
by such schools of philosophy as the Epicureans, Stoics, 
and Skeptics, which kept themselves far removed from 
society. None of these 'schools' could be so termed in 
the sense of offering an education, but rather in the mod- 
ern usage of a group of adherents to certain teachings. 
They spent their energy, for the most part, in interpret- 
ing, elaborating, and lauding the original teachings of 
the founders, and with them a stereotyped dogmatism 
took the place of philosophy. 

The Schools of Rhetoric. — But these schools were not 
the only outcome of the teaching of the sophists. Just 
as they came about gradually from the speculative ten- 
dencies of the sophists as developed through certain 
famous philosophers, there Hkewise grew up more di- 
rectly from the sophistic efforts to train young men in 
rhetoric and pubhc speaking a multitude of rhetorical 
Formal study schools. In these a formal study was made of oratory 
knowledge. and the knowledge of the day. Their professed object 
was to make successful men of the world, and, although 
they at first included such reputable and influential 
schools as that of Isocrates (436-338 B. C), they laid 
little claim to teaching anything soHd or profound, much 
less to forming any philosophic habits. They succeeded 
in spreading a popular education among a people that 
had lost all hope of a poHtical Hfe, but they soon degen- 
erated into the use of narrow and formal methods. The 



THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS 29 

later rhetoricians attempted to hasten oratorical train- 
ing and preparation for life, by teaching their pupils 
ready-made speeches and dialogues, together with a gen- 
eral knowledge of current questions. Nevertheless, these 
schools flourished for several centuries and closely rivalled 
those of the philosophers. ^ 

The Hellenic Universities. — From these two classes 
of schools, the philosophical and the rhetorical, the fame 
of Athens spread rapidly, and from the fourth century 
B. C. onward the number of young men from all over 
the civihzed world who came there to study steadily 
increased. Before the close of the century the old cadet 
training of Athens was united with this intellectual edu- ^"sin of Uni- 

.... versity of 

cation, and there sprang up a regular institution or uni- Athens, 
versity, which the young Athenians and students from 
outside might attend. Before long, the Hellenic world 
boasted other universities, such as those at Rhodes, other uni- 

' ' versities. 

Pergamon, Alexandria, and Rome. Until almost 300 
A. D. Athens remained the chief intellectual center of 
civilization, and attracted students from all parts of the 
Roman Empire. Gradually, however, the higher educa- 
tion there tended toward the study of rhetoric alone and 
artificiality grew apace. In consequence, Alexandria 
came to displace Athens as the center of culture, and hfer ^ 
university became the leading one of the world. Here 
the various philosophic and reHgious sects gathered to PMosophy 

'■^ ^ '-' " and science at 

study and discuss, and the abstract Greek philosophy Alexandria, 
united with the more concrete behefs of the Orient, es- 
pecially Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity. 
Thus there flourished here the various systems of reli- 
gious philosophy known collectively as 'Hellenistic,' 
such as Neopythagoreanism, Neomazdeism, Philonism, 



3© A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

Gnosticism, and Neoplatonism. Considerably before 
this, too, there had developed at Alexandria the Ptole- 
maic theory of the universe. Other noted investiga- 
tions, like those of Euclid in geometry, Archimedes in 
physics, Eratosthenes in astronomy, and Diophantus in 
algebra, also bore witness to the intellectual activity of 
this university. 

Extension of Hellenic Culture. — It can thus be seen 
that the poUtical downfall of Athens had only prepared 

Spread through the Way for a larger intellectual influence. As Alexander 
extended his yoke over one Eastern country after an- 
other, he had carried with him all the culture of Greece, 
and within a century of his death the whole Orient was 
dotted with Greek gymnasia, stadia, and theaters, and 
saturated with Greek Uterature, art, philosophy, and edu- 
cation. Similarly Rome, which had come somewhat into 
contact with Greece before conquering her, had been 
tinctured with Greek life and learning; and, after her 
absorption of Macedon and Greece, she fell under the 

and the Roman spiritual thrall of the subjugated people. The history 
of Greek civilization and education was so intermingled 
with the Roman that it can scarcely be distinguished 
from it. The Greek schools of philosophy and rhetoric 
were continued in Rome, Roman youths made up a great 
body of the attendance at the universities of Athens and 
Alexandria, and the Roman emperors did much for the 
support and extension of the work in these institutions. 
Hence from the Greeks have developed some of the 
most advanced intellectual and aesthetic ideas that 
civilization has known. 



THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEKS 3 1 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, Before the Middle Ages (Macmillan, 1909), chap. XII; 
Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), chap. III. See also Laurie, 
Pre-Christian Education (Longmans, Green, 1900), pp. 208-318. 
Davidson, T., in his Aristotle (Scribner, 1896), develops the periods 
of Greek education in chronological order, and his Education of 
the Greek People (Appleton, 1903) gives the social setting of its de- 
velopment. A most scholarly and brilliant work is Freeman, K. J., 
Schools of Hellas (Macmillan, 1907), which is illustrated by vase- 
scenes and other reproductions of Greek education. Bosanquet, 
B., The Education of the Young in Plato's Republic (Cambridge 
University Press, 1908), Nettleship, R. L., Theory of Greek Educa- 
tion in Plato's Republic (See Evelyn Abbott's Hellenica, Longmans, 
Green, 1908), and Burnet, J., Aristotle on Education (Cambridge 
University Press) afford a good interpretation of the theorists 
mentioned; while Capes, W. W., in the University Life in Ancient 
Athens (Harper, 1877), and Walden, J. W., in the Universities of 
Ancient Greece (Scribner, 1909), furnish a lively description of the 
students and professors. 



CHAPTER III 

THE EDUCATION OF THE ROMANS 

OUTLINE 

The contribution of the Romans to progress was largely due to 
their absorption of Greek culture, but their primitive training had 
an influence in itself. This was mostly civic and practical, and 
was given informally in the family and the forum. 

Through amalgamation with the Greek, Roman education 
maintained three grades of schools: (i) the elementary school 
or Indus, (2) the 'grammar' school, and (3) the rhetorical school. 
Beyond the education of these schools, a young Roman might 
attend a university. 

Schools were gradually subsidized by the emperors, but educa- 
tion eventually deteriorated into a formal qualification for sena- 
torial rank. The practical Romans, however, created a universal 
empire and legal system, a universal religion, and other institu- 
tions for modern society. 

Roman Education Amalgamated with Greek. — The 
name of Rome is still suggestive of power and organiza- 
tion. These characteristics seem to have been innate; 
but the significance of Roman development to the his- 
tory of progress and education was largely due to the 
fact that, in her spread over the civilized world, the 
Eternal City amalgamated the Greek civilization with 
ienize(?Roman ^er own. Until then her ideals of life, while 'effective 
ideals were jj^ conquest, had been narrow and Httle adapted to the 

narrow. n 5 r- , 

development of individuality or of cosmopolitanism. 
Unconsciously realizing the need of broader ideals, she 

32 



THE EDUCATION OF THE ROMANS 



o 



absorbed those of Greece. But Rome could not be Hel- • 
lenized without making some contributions to the re- 
sult from her own genius, and for that reason it is im- 
portant to learn something of Roman civiHzation and 
education, crude as they were, before they came into 
contact with Greek culture. 

Early Education in Rome. — In the early days Rome 
was animated by intense patriotism and love for miHtary 
life, and felt that each citizen was bound to merge his 
identity in that of the state. In the surrender of in- ^^^ ^Y^^. ^P*^ 

•' ^ practical aim. 

dividuality they were, to be sure, not unlike the Spar- 
tans, although they believed that this subordination 
should be brought about voluntarily rather than by 
compulsion of law and state organization. But, with 
such a love as theirs for mere material achievement, the 
Athenian ideal of a full and harmonious development 
of one's whole nature could scarcely be expected to make 
any appeal. They looked not for harmony, proportion, 
or grace, but for stern utility. They were sedate, grave, 
and serious, and their education was practical, prosaic, 
and utihtarian. 

Until the Greek institutions began to be adopted, 
schools did not exist in Rome, except possibly the ludus 
or elementary school. During this pristine period edu- 
cation consisted in a practical training in Roman ideals 
and everyday hving conducted largely through the family. 
In childhood the boys and girls alike were given a physical Jng°in°fhe^^'° 
and moral training by their mother, but, as the boy ^^™^ ^^^ '^ 
grew older, he went more in the company of his father, 
and learned efficiency in life informally through his ex- 
ample and that of the older men, while the girl was 
taught at home by her mother. If the boy belonged to 



<^ A student's history of education 

a patrician family, he might acquire much knowledge 
concerning Roman custom and law by hearing his father 
advise and aid the family clients, or 'dependents,' and 
by attending banquets with him. He might also receive 
an apprenticeship training from his parent or some other 
older man in the profession of soldier, advocate, or states- 
man. In case he was born in a less exalted station, he 
might learn his father's occupation at the farm or shop. 
The girl, whatever her social status, was trained by 
her mother in the domestic arts, especially in spinning 
and weaving wool. Through their parents children 
probably learned to read and write; and they com- 
mitted to memory stories of Roman heroes, ballads, 
martial and rehgious songs, and the Twelve Tables of 
national laws, after these had been codified (451 B. C). 
Physical exercise was secured largely by games, which 
were mostly in imitation of future occupations, and 
gymnastics were employed simply as training for war. 
The usages of home and public religion also played an 
important part in the education of the young Romans, 
especially since almost every activity in Hfe was presided 
over by some deity, whom it was necessary to propitiate 
when engaging in it. 
Practical and Thus education in early Rome was practical, and, 
character. to some extent, occupational. It was intended to pro- 
duce efficiency as fathers, citizens, and soldiers. It 
consisted in training the youths to be healthy and strong 
in mind and body, and sedate and simple in their habits; 
to reverence the gods, their parents, the laws, and insti- 
tutions; and to be courageous in war, and famihar with 
the traditional agriculture, or the conduct of some busi- 
ness. It did produce a nation of warriors and loyal 



THE EDUCATION OF THE ROMANS ^3^ 

citizens, but it inevitably tended to make them calcu- 
lating, selfish, overbearing, cruel, and rapacious. They 
never possessed either lofty ideals or enthusiasm. Their 
training was best adapted to a small state, and became 
unsatisfactory when they had spread over the entire 
Italian peninsula. The golden age of valor and stern 
virtue had then largely departed, and they began un- 
consciously to seek a more universal culture. While 
such a people regarded the Greeks as visionary, just as 
the Greeks looked upon them as barbarians, they felt 
instinctively that only by absorption of the Hellenic 
ideals could their cosmopolitan ambitions be carried 
out. On the other hand, it was through the organization 
which the Romans were able to furnish, that the great 
ideals formulated by the Greeks were destined to be 
rendered effective and to become a matter of value and 
concern to civilization ever since. 

The Absorption of Greek Culture. — There was a 
gradual infiltration of Greek culture into Rome from 
very early days. This received a great impulse through 
the conquests of Alexander (334-323 B. C.) and the t^^i 
absorption of Macedon by Rome (168 B. C.), but it was Alexander and 

-^ ^ ^' Roman con- 

not until about half a century after Greece itself had quests. 
become a Roman province (146 B, C), that the Greek 
educational ideals and institutions can be said to have 
been completely absorbed by Rome. This new type of 
education was thus well estabhshed early in the first 
century B. C. It may be said to have remained almost 
unmodified until toward the end of the second century 
A. D., when poHtical conditions at Rome became most 
unstable and the period of degeneracy set in. During 
these three centuries of Hellenized Roman education, 



36 A student's history of education 

three grades of schools resulted from the amalgamation. 
They were the (i) ludus or school of the litter ator, as 
the lowest school was called; (2) the 'grammar' school, 

The schools taught by a grammaticus or litteratus; and (3) the schools 
of rhetoric and oratory, which furnished a somewhat 
higher education. 

The Ludus. — The ludus, or lowest school, may possibly 
have existed before the process of Hellenization even 
began, but if it did, it must have been intended simply 
to supplement the more informal training of the home. 

Its content and Whenever originated, it probably taught at first only 
reading, writing, and rudimentary calculation, as in the 
family, through the medium of historical anecdotes, bal- 
lads, religious songs, and the Twelve Tables. But as the 
Greek influence crept in more and more, the Hterary con- 
tent was somewhat extended. About the middle of the 
third century B. C, Livius Andronicus translated the 
Odyssey into Latin; and a number of epics, dramas, and 
epigrams were soon composed after Greek models. These 
works, in whole or part, were introduced into the curri- 
cula of the ludi, and by the beginning of the first century 
B. C., the Twelve Tables had been displaced by the Latin- 
ized Odyssey of Andronicus. The methods of instruction 
were memoriter and imitative. The names and alpha- 
betic order of the letters were first taught without any 
indication of their significance or even shape, and all 
possible combinations of syllables were committed be- 
fore any words were learned. Reading and writing were 
then taught by dictation, and, in tracing the letters on 
wax- tablets with the stylus (Fig. 5), the hand of the 
pupil was at first guided by the teacher. Calculation 
was learned by counting on the fingers, by means of 





Fig. 5. — School materials from wall paintings: (a)Wax tablet and capsa, 
containing rolls, or books. (6) Three stilt, capsa, and roll leaning 
against it. (c) Wax tablet, with stilus tied to it. 




Fig. 6. — Scene at a ludus or Roman elementary school, taken from a 
fresco found at Herculaneum. 



THE EDUCATION OF THE ROMANS 37 

pebbles, or upon the abacus, and eventually sums were 
worked upon the tablets. 

Methods so devoid of interest were naturally accom- 
panied by severe discipline. The rod, lash, and whip Sac£^ ^^^ 
seem to have been in frequent use, and the names or- 
dinarily applied to schoolmasters in Latin literature are 
suggestive of harshness and brutahty. Moreover, a 
fresco found at Herculaneum depicts a boy held over 
the shoulders of another, with the master beating the 
victim upon the bare back (Fig. 6). Under these cir- 
cumstances, no real qualifications were required of the 
teacher, and his social standing was low. The Greek 
custom of having the boy accompanied to and from 
school by a slave that was otherwise incapacitated by aJcomp^any 
age or physical disability soon came to be imitated by p"p^^- 
the Romans. When a special building was employed Buildings, 
for the school, it was usually a mere booth or veranda, 
and the pupils sat on the floor or upon stones. 

Grammar Schools. — The 'grammar' school grew out 
of the increasing Hterary work of the Indus. But, while 
offering a more advanced course, it would seem to belong 
in part at least to the elementary stage of education, 
especially as its work was never sharply divided from 
that of the Indus. The young Roman might attend both 
a Greek and a Latin grammar school, but, in case he did, 
usually went first to the former. The curriculum in each 
consisted, according to Quintilian, of 'the art of speaking Curriculum, 
correctly' and 'the interpretation of the poets,' or, in 
other words, of a training in grammar and literature. 
'Grammar' may, however, have included some knowl- 
edge of philology and derivations, as well as drill on the 
parts of speech, inflections, syntax, and prosody, and 



38 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Methods and 
discipline. 



Buildings. 



Professional, 
but broad 
training. 



practice in composition and paragraphing. The literary 
training was obtained by writing paraphrases of the best 
authors, textual and Hterary criticism, commentaries, 
and exercises in diction and verse- writing. Some other 
studies, like arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, geography, 
and music may also have been added in time, from the 
suggestions of Plato, but the Romans naturally gave 
them a practical bearing. Some gymnastics, mostly for 
military training, were often in the course. The methods 
in the grammar schools were somewhat better than those 
of the Indus, but the commentary of the teacher on the 
text was usually taken down verbatim by the pupil. The 
discipline, in consequence, was not much in advance of 
that of the lower schools. But the accommodations for 
these secondary schools were decidedly superior, and the 
buildings not only possessed suitable seats for the pupils 
and teacher, but were even adorned with paintings and 
sculpture. 

Rhetorical Schools. — The 'rhetorical' schools were a 
development of work in debate that had gradually grown 
up in the grammar schools. The earliest of these institu- 
tions at Rome were Greek, but by the first century B.C., 
there had arisen a number in which Latin was used. 
While they afiforded a legal and forensic training, and 
seem more professional in spirit than the grammar 
schools, they were by no means narrow. The orator was 
for the Roman the typical man of culture and education, 
and he was supposed not only to have been trained in 
eloquence and law and history, but to possess wide learn- 
ing, grace, culture, and knowledge of hum?-" ^^motions, 
sound judgment, and good memory. Basic training 
in oratory, these schools furnished a linguis \d lite};- 



THE EDUCATION OF THE ROMANS 39 

ary education of some breadth. They may be considered 
as belonging partly to the secondary and partly to the 
higher stage of education. The youths were exercised 
first in declamation on ethical and political subjects, 
which would bring in fine distinctions in Roman law 
and ethics, and later they were given practice in three 
types of speeches, — deliberative, judicial, and panegyric. 
Attention was given to all the various factors in making 
a successful oration: the matter, arrangement, style, 
memorizing, and dehvery. 

Universities. — When the young Roman had com- 
pleted his course at a rhetorical school, he might, if he 
were ambitious, go to the university at Athens, Alexan- 
dria, or Rhodes for a higher training. Later, a university throughout the 
also sprang up at Rome, and before long these institu- empire 
tions spread throughout the empire. The Greek in- 
fluence caused a large number of these institutions to be 
established in the East, but some were also located in the 
West. The latter gave more emphasis to practical sub- 
jects. In several instances the universities found their 
nucleus in one of the many libraries that were started 
with books brought from the sacking of Greece and Asia 
Minor. 

Subsidization of Education. — Thus, through the adop- 
tion of the institutions of the Greeks, Roman education 
became thoroughly Hellenized. Although all the types 
of schools spread everywhere in the empire, there was, 
of course, no such thing as a real school system, except 
as the government gradually came to subsidize all 
schools. This the different emperors accomplished in 
various ways, — by contributing to school support, pay- imperial con- 
ing a salary to certain teachers, or granting them exemp- 



Formal and 



40 A student's history of education 

tion from taxation and military service, or ofifering 
scholarships to a given number of pupils. As a result, 
schools came to be established in many cases for the 
purpose of getting these special privileges for the teachers, 
rather than for promoting education. To stop these 
abuses, the emperor in 425 A. D. decreed that he had the 
sole authority to estabhsh schools, and that a penalty 
would be laid upon anyone else assuming this preroga- 
tive. In this way the schools came fully into the hands 
of the imperial government, and the basis for the idea 
of public education was laid for the first time in history. 
Decay of Education. — Before this, however, Roman 
education had deteriorated. With the political and 
moral decay that were obvious after the second century 
superficial A. D., it became a mere form and mark of the aristocracy. 
The training in oratory was continued, because it was a 
necessary qualification for entering the senatorial class, 
but it had lost its real function, since there was no longer 
any occasion for oratory when the emperor dominated 
all the government and law. It was not intended to 
furnish a training of any value in life, and the careful 
literary preparation was more and more shirked. While 
the grammarians and rhetoricians were still held in high 
esteem, they contented themselves with mere display, 
and wandered from town to town more for the purpose 
of entertaining than of teaching. Glittering phrases, 
epigrams, and other artificialities took the place of in- 
struction and argument. 

Influence of Roman Education. — But the Roman 
education and civilization had left their impress upon 
the world. This was accomplished by the practical na- 
ture of the Romans, and by their ability to make abstract 



THE EDUCATION OF THE ROMANS 41 

ideals concrete and embody them in institutions that 
have been useful to civilization and progress. Through 
them was created the idea of a universal empire, which / 
has been influential throughout the world's history. 
Similarly, the concept of law originating with the Greek institutions 

... , , . t 1 1 f 1 T^ t furnished for 

philosophers became m the hands of the Romans the the ideals of 
great system of principles that underUes and guides Greece, 
all our present civilization. And it was the Roman ,/ 
genius for organization that institutionalized a despised Y 
religious sect and expanded it into the position of the 
greatest world religion. If Judaism furnished the world 
with exalted religious ideals, and if from Hellenism came j 
striking intellectual and aesthetic concepts, the institu- 
tions for realizing these ideals originated with Rome. / 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, Before the Middle Ages (Macmillan, 1909), chap. XIII; 
Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), chap. IV. Interesting brief 
monographs on the subject are Clarke, G., Education of Children 
at Rome (Macmillan, 1896), and Wilkins, A. S., Roman Education, 
(Cambridge University Press, 1905). See also the treatment in 
Laurie, Pre-Christian Education (Longmans, Green, 1900), pp. 319- 
436. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE EDUCATION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS 

OUTLINE 

Christianity accomplished much in the reform of the degraded 
Roman society. The earliest education of the Christians came 
through their 'otherworldly' life, but actual schools, called *cate- 
chumenal,' before long furnished a moral and religious training. 

After the amalgamation of Christianity with Graeco-Roman 
philosophy, 'catechetical' schools furnished a higher training. 
When higher education came to be utilized by the bishops for 
training their clergy, institutions known as 'episcopal' or 'cathe- 
dral ' schools were founded. 

Later, although opposition grew up among the Christians to the 
culture of Greece and Rome, its impress was found to have been 
left upon the doctrines and organization of Christianity. 

The Ideals of Early Christianity. — The actual social 

conditions amid which the religion of Christ was born, 

' and which it was destined to reform, were most degraded. 

Impotence of The Roman world had become sunk in vice and corrup- 

Roman and . .... 

other ideals, tion. The Roman virtues of patriotism, bravery, and 
* service to the state had largely disappeared with the 

development of the empire, and were impotent in check- 
ing the widespread depravity. Nor could the lofty 
Greek thought accomplish much, since it was too in- 
tellectual and philosophic, to touch the masses. The 
debased Eastern religions, which Rome had admitted 
in her easy-going skepticism, were still less productive of 
good. While the more philosophic forms of Judaism and 

42 



THE EDUCATION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS 43 

the Roman development of Stoicism tended to raise the 
tone of morals and pave the way for Christianity, not 
even these forces could have accomphshed a successful 
"reform in Roman society, without the stimulus and wide 
appeal of the Christian teachings. Christianity was the Universal 
ethical and universal religion needed as a leaven. Its Christianity, 
truths were based on faith rather than understanding, 
and its appeal was to the instinctive promptings and 
emotions rather than to the intellect. This made it 
democratic and enabled it to reach tiie masses, for every- 
body can feel and have faith, even where he cannot 
understand. 

Early Christian Life as an Education. — Thus it came 
about that, while the earliest Christians were without 
schools of their own and were largely ilKterate, their 
religion itself served as an education. They were prac- 
tically deprived of intellectual development, but they 
received moral training of a very high order. The very 
dishonor and unpopularity of the Christian religion, and 
the segregation of their Church membership, gave the Segregation. 
Christian life itself all the effect of a species of schooling. 
The early Christians showed 911 extreme reaction to the 
vicious morals of the time, and endeavored to cultivate 
the higher ideals inculcated by the teachings of Christ. 
They had gathered from the statements of the Master 
that he would soon return and this world would come 
to an end. They, therefore, concerned themselves en- 
tirely with a preparation for 'Jerusalem the golden' and 'Otherworld- 
'the life everlasting,' and the ideal of this most primi- 
tive Christian training may be described as 'other- 
worldly.' 

Catechumenal Schools. — Early in the second cen- 



44 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Cause of their 
organization. 



Elementary 
content. 



Graeco-Roman 
training a 
worldly one. 



tury, however, when the Church began to extend itself 
rapidly, it seemed necessary to insist upon some sort of 
formal instruction as preliminary to Church membership. 
It was also deemed wise to fix a period of probation 
after the profession of one's faith in Christ, in order that 
informers might not be admitted to the services, or the 
Church disgraced by apostasy or the lapses of those who 
had not well considered the step. These demands were 
met by the gradual institution of popular instruction in 
Christian principles for the Jewish and pagan proselytes, 
who were known as catechumens. While some effort was 
made to lift the pupils of these ' catechumenal' schools 
from the bondage of ignorance, they were primarily 
trained in the things needful for their souls' salvation, 
and the ideal of Christian education remained prevail- 
ingly 'otherworldly.' The instruction was carried on 
in the portico or other special portion of the church; and 
consisted in moral and religious teachings, reading and 
memorizing the Scriptures, together with some training 
in early psalmody. The course usually lasted three 
years, and while some distinction was made between 
the general division of catechumens and those almost 
ready for baptism, there is httle ground for supposing 
that the schools were divided into actual classes. The 
meetings in the church were held several times a week, 
or even every day. 

Amalgamation of Christianity with Graeco-Roman 
Philosophy. — But while the Christian ideals and train- 
ing were developing and crystallizing, the Greek philos- 
ophy in its Roman form was being continued and ex- 
panded. This movement has been seen to be very dif- 
ferent from early Christianity in its general purpose. 



THE EDUCATION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS 45 

It concerned itself chiefly with life in this world. The 
problem it attempted to solve was how one should live 
so as to get the most satisfaction out of life. The Hel- 
lenized Roman schools may, therefore, be accounted as 
' worldly ' as the Christian schools were * otherworldly ' in 
their aim. A general feeling of this marked difference in 
purpose and organization between Christianity and the 
contemporaneous Graeco-Roman culture was destined 
to cause an opposition to pagan learning to spring up 
among the Christians. But for two or three centuries ^"'°" °^ *5* 

° worldly and 

this is scarcely noticeable, especially in the Eastern o^her- 

. . worldly, — 

empire, where it was felt that philosophy was, like Chris- 
tianity, a search after truth; and, as far as it went, con- 
firmed the Bible. There was even a tendency to unite 
the two movements. As the new rehgion spread through- 
out the Roman world, and was compelled to defend itself 
against charges of immorality, atheism, and treason, 
the educated converts attempted to set forth the Chris- 
tian teachings in terms of Greek thought, and to solve 
speculative problems that had never been considered 
by Jesus and his disciples. The first Hellenizing Chris- 
tians are known as Apologists, since their efforts were Apologists 
directed toward reconciling Christianity with the Graeco- 
Roman philosophy. In general, they mingled Stoicism^^,,^ 
with the teachings of Jesus. Later, other Hellenistic 
philosophers unified Christian doctrine with the princi- 
ples of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle. Perhaps the 
most extreme of these philosophic positions within Chris- 
tianity was a combination with Platonism known as 
Gnosticism, which was intended to be a sort of esoteric ^°^ Gnostics. 
knowledge and to show the relation of Christianity to 
other religions and to the universe. 



46 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

Catechetical and Episcopal or Cathedral Schools. — 
In this way, during the second and third centuries, all 
the Christians at Alexandria, which had become the 
great seat of Hellenistic pliilosophy, had their theology 
tinctured with Greek thought. Before long, a sort of 
theological, or 'catechetical' school, was gradually or- 
ganized at this center, to counteract the heathen schools 
there and to afford higher instruction for Christian 
Pupils in the tcachers and leaders. This school had no building of 

school at 

Alexandria ai- its own, and the studcnts met at the teacher's house, 

lowed to study .,..,.. 

all Greek but they Were able to take advantage of the facilities 
su jec s. ^^ ^^^ University of Alexandria. Jn addition to a thor- 

ough training in the Bible, the pupils were allowed to 
study all types of Greek philosophy, except Epicurean- 
ism, the whole range of sciences, classical Greek litera- 
ture, grammar, rhetoric, and other higher subjects of 
the pagan schools, but from a different point of view. 
Thus the Graeco-Roman and the Christian movements 
had formed an alliance in education, and in this catecheti- 
cal school we find an attempted union of the 'other- 
worldly' ideal with the 'worldly.' 

The best known heads of this school at Alexandria 
were Clement (150-215) and Origen (185-253). They 
were among the most noted of the Eastern Fathers in 
the philosophic interpretation of Christianity, and their 
work contributed not a Httle to heretical doctrine. 
Origen may even have been expelled for heresy. At any 
rate, he opened a new school of the same sort at Caesarea, 
where he was kindly received. Other catechetical 
icajYchook^^*^ schools Sprang up rapidly at Antioch, Edessa, Nisibis, 
and elsewhere throughout the East. Later the acces- 
sion of the followers of Nestorius, whose Hellenized 



THE EDUCATION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS 47 

theology had in 431 been proscribed by the Church at 
the Council of Ephesus, very greatly increased the im- 
portance of their cities as intellectual centers. In addi- 
tion to the translations already there, the Nestorian 
Christians accumulated a larger range of the original 
Greek treatises on philosophy, science, and medicine. 

But before this, higher training of the Hellenic t5^e 
came to be regularly used by the bishops in training ^'shops start 
their clergy, and promotion in the Church began to schools for 
depend upon having had this education. So higher 
schools of this sort were gradually instituted in every 
bishopric at the see city, and became known eventually 
as 'episcopal' or 'bishop's' schools, or, from their loca- 
tion at the bishop's church, as ' cathedral ' schools. These 
cathedral schools became the most important educational 
institutions of the Middle Ages.. From them were de- 
rived all the schools of Western Europe, but the bishop 
soon became too busy to attend to them himself and was 
forced to commit them to various officials. Thus they 
developed in time into at least three types, — the 'gram- 
mar' school, taught by one of the cathedral canons, 
known as the scholasticus; the 'song' or music school, 
taught by the cantor or precentor; and the 'chorister's' 
school, which offered a combination of the training in 
the two other schools. Thus the cathedral schools vir- 
tually took the place of the old pagan schools supported 
by the Roman emperors. 

Influence of Graeco-Roman Culture upon Chris- 
tianity. — However, by the century after the foundation 
of the catechetical school at Alexandria, the Christians ^ ^ , 

Growth of op- 
had begun to grow suspicious of Graeco-Roman culture position to the 

^ . IT- Grffico-Roman 

and the 'worldly' ideal in education. Even the Eastern culture. 



48 A student's history of education 

or Greek Fathers of the Church appear to have cooled 
considerably in their attitude toward philosophy, and 
the Western or Latin Fathers were more pronounced 
in their opf>osition. Roman Christians could not forget 
the immorahty of those who had been connected with 
this culture, nor the abuse and insults that these pagans 
had heaped upon them. They felt, too, that the one 
great mission of the Church was ethical, and that Christ's 
second coming was at hand, and that all philosophy and 
learning were somewhat impertinent. — -c^w^d ifiJiti^^ - 
Nevertheless, despite this growth of opposition to 
pagan philosophy, primitive Christianity could not 
endure in its simpHcity after it had been in contact 
with the advanced intellectual concepts of the Greeks, 
as modified by the organizing genius of the Romans. 
Both Greece and Rome left a permanent impress upon 
Christianity; and, though dead, they yet hve in the 
Christian Church. The influence of Greek philosophy 
is seen in the formulation of a system of Christian doc- 
But great in- trine. This appears in the development of the Apostles'' 
Greece and Creed during the second century, in the selection of a 
chHsUan°'doc- canon of sacred writings or ISlew Testament during the 
Church"^ third century, and still more in the Nicene Creed (325), 
organizaUon. which was not formulated until Christianity had been 
largely Hellenized. Similarly, the Greek tendency to 
attribute universal vaHdity to their sacred writings, and 
the pomp, ceremonies, and mysteries of the Hellenic 
worship, are more or less apparent in the various eccle- 
siastical tenets and usages. On the other hand, the 
Roman concepts of administration appear in the or- 
ganization of the Church, which seems to have closely 
paralleled the Roman civil poHty. By the third cen- 



THE EDUCATION OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS 49 

tury priests and bishops had largely come to be similarly 
located, and to correspond in control, to the Roman dis- 
trict and city magistrates respectively. And in 445 the 
recognition of the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome 
established a visible head of the entire Church, corre- 
sponding to the position of the emperor on the civic 
side. 

Rise of the Monastic Schools. — Thus it has been 
seen how the two great movements of Graeco-Roman 
culture and Christian teaching arose independently^ 
in time united and later separated, although, after separa- 
tion, the Christian doctrines were somewhat aflfected 
by their long association with pagan philosophy. Even- 
tually the pagan schools were suppressed by the edict 
of Justinian in 529 A. D., and the Christian education was 
left alone in the field. It then found an additional 
means of expression in the 'monastic' schools, in which ^1^^'"^^°?,,*° 

^ ' otherworldli- 

there was naturally a tendency to revert to an ascetic "ess. 
or 'otherworldly' ideal, and to leave intellectual attain- 
ments largely out of consideration. But these monastic 
institutions are to be grouped with mediasvalism and 
belong more distinctly to the next chapter. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, Before the Middle Ages (Macmillan, 1909), chap. XII; 
Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 221-243. For the 
moral effect of Christianity, see Lecky, W. E. H., History of Euro- 
pean Morals (Appleton, 1869), vol. II, pp. i-ioo. Other places 
in the chapter will be illumined by reading Ayer, J. C, Jr., Catechu- 
menal Schools and Catechetical Schools (Monroe Cyclopaedia of 
Education, vol. I); Dill, D., Roman Society in the Last Century of 
the Western Empire (Macmillan, 1899), especially book V; Hatch, 



50 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

E., The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian 
Church (Hibbert Lectures, 1888, Williams, London, 1891); Hodg- 
son, G., Primitive Christian Education (Clark, Edinburgh, 1906); 
and Leach, A. F., Bishop's Schools and Cathedral Schools (Monroe 
Cyclopaedia of Education, vol. I). 



PART II 
THE MIDDLE AGES 



CHAPTER V 

THE MONASTIC EDUCATION 

OUTLINE 

During the Middle Ages the German hordes absorbed ancient 
civilization under the authoritative guidance of the Church, and 
the chief means of leavening the barbarian lump was found in the 
cathedral and monastic schools. 

Monasteries grew up to counteract the prevailing worldliness. 
To keep the monks busy, Benedict prescribed the copying of 
manuscripts, and this literary work rendered schools necessary. 
In these monastic schools were taught the 'seven liberal arts' by 
catechetical methods. 

Thus monasticism helped preserve learning and education, al- 
though it was somewhat hostile to the classics and science. 



The Middle Ages as a Period of Assimilation and Re- 
pression. — The Middle Ages may be regarded as an 
era of assimilation and of repression. On the one hand, 
the rude German hordes, who had by the sixth century 
everywhere taken possession of the decadent ancient 
world, were enabled during this period to rise gradually 
to such a plane of intelligence and achievement that 
they could absorb the Greek, Roman, and Christian Absorption of 

^ •' _ ' ' ^ Greek, Roman, 

civilization, and become its carriers to modern times, and christian 

civilization. 

On the other hand, that this absorption might take place, 
it was necessary that the individual should conform 
to the model set, and it was inevitable that a bondage 
to authority, convention, and institutions should ensue. 

S3 



54 A student's history of education 

Authoritative The main power in effecting this subservience on the 
Church. part of mediaeval society was the Christian Church. 

For it was but natural during the period of assimilation 
that the Church, which had become completely organ- 
• ized and unlimited in power, should stand as the chief 
guide and schoolmaster of the Germanic hosts. By the 
decree of Justinian in 529 A. D., which closed the pagan 
schools and marks the beginning of the Middle Ages, 
Christian education was left without a rival. Hence 
the cathedral and monastic schools became almost the 
sole means of leavening the barbarian lump. Contrary 
to the view commonly accepted, the educational activi- 
ties of the cathedral institutions were more important 
and general than those of the monastic schools. But 
the former have already been somewhat discussed, and 
so much relating to the course and services of the latter 
will also apply to them that we may now turn to a de- 
tailed description of the monastic schools. 

The Evolution and Nature of Monasticism. — To 
understand these schools, it will be necessary to examine 
the movement out of which they arose. Monasticism 
grew up through the corruption in Roman society and 
the desire of those within the Church for a deeper reli- 
gious life. Christianity was no longer confined to small 
extra-social groups meeting secretly, but was represented 
in all walks of society, and mingled with the world. It 
had become thoroughly secularized, and even the clergy 
prevailing vice, had in many instances yielded to the prevailing worldli- 
ness and vice. 

Under these circumstances there were Christians who 
felt that the only hope for salvation rested in fleeing 
from the world and its temptations and taking refuge in 



THE MON^ STIC EDUCATION 55 

an isolated life of asceti.ism and devotion. This led 
eventually to the foundation of monasteries, in which monasterfes*^ 
the monks lived apart in separate cells, but met for meals, 
prayers, communion, and counsel. Monasticism started 
in Egypt, but soon spread into Syria and Palestine, and 
then into Greece, Italy, and Gaul. But in the West 
monasticism gradually adopted more active pursuits i^°he West" 
and milder discipline, and the monks turned to the cul- 
tivation of the soil and the preservation of literature. 

Benedict's 'Rule' and the Multiplication of Manu- 
scripts. — These monastic activities were especially crys- 
tallized and promoted by the Benedictine 'rule.' This 
was a code formulated by St. Benedict in 529 for his 
monastery at Monte Cassino in Southwest Italy, and it 
was generally adopted by the monasteries of Western 
Europe. In the forty-eighth chapter of the 'rule' he 
commanded that the monks each day engage in manual Manual labor 

_ •' . . ^nd reading re- 

labor for at least seven hours and in systematic reading quu-ed. 
for at least two hours. The requirement of daily reading 
led to the collection and reproduction of manuscripts, 
and each monastery soon had a scriptorium, or 'writing- 
room,' in one end of the building (Fig. 7). Most of the 
works copied were of a religious nature and were limited 
in number, but the monks were occasionally occupied 
with the Latin classics, and they also became the authors 
of some original literature, which included histories of the Resulting hter- 

o ' ary activities. 

Church, the monasteries, and the times, as well as works 
upon religious topics. 

Amalgamation of Roman and Irish Christianity. — 
This preservation of learning and development of litera- 
ture was especially apparent in the monasteries of Eng- Especial pres- 
land. It came about through the amalgamation at the learning 



56 



A student's history of education 



in English 
monasteries. 



Length of 
course. 



Types of 
pupils. 



Council of Whitby, in 664, of tie Roman Church in Eng- 
land, with Irish Christianity, which had preserved an 
unusually high order of learning after its isolation. An 
immense enthusiasm for the Church, culture, and litera- 
ture of Rome resulted from this merging of the rival or- 
ganizations, and the English monasteries, such as Jarrow 
and Wearmouth, and cathedral schools, like York, be- 
came the great educational centers for Europe. 

The Organization of the Monastic Schools. — The 
literary work of the monasteries soon led to the estab- 
Hshment of regular schools within their walls (Fig. 8). 
The course in these monastic schools may often have 
lasted eight or ten years, as boys of ten or even less were 
sometimes received, and no one could become a^ regular 
member of the order before he was eighteen. By the 
ninth century the schools sometimes also admitted pupils 
who never expected to enter the order. These latter 
were called externi in distinction to the oblati, whoi^weje 
preparing to become monks. Some training was also 
given women in convents for nuns, such as that estab- 
Ushed by the sister of Benedict. 

The * Seven Liberal Arts ' as the Curriculum. — The 
curriculum of the monastic schools was at first elementary 
and narrow. It included only reading, in order to study 
the Bible; writing, to copy the sacred books; and calcula- 
tion, for the sake of computing Church festivals. But 
after a while the classical learning was gradually intro- 
duced in that dry and condensed form of the 'seven 
liberal arts', which was also used by the cathedral schools. 
This mediaeval canon of studies was a gradual evolution 
from Graeco-Roman days. The discrimination of these 
liberal subjects may be said to have begun with Plato, 




Fig. 7. — A monk in the scriplorimn. 




Fig. 8. — A monastic school. 



THE MONASTIC EDUCATION 57 

.whose educational scheme included a higher group of 
studies, consisting of arithmetic, geometry, music, and 
astronomy; and during the later days of Greece and 
Rome these 'liberal' subjects of Plato were combined 
with the 'practical' studies of the sophists, — g ramm ar, 
r hetori c, and dialectic. These 'seven liberal arts' were 
definitely fixed during the fifth and sixth centuries A. D., 
through several treatises by such writers as Martianus ^ope^orthe°^ 
Capella, Boethius, and Cassiodorus; and the grammar, 'q^dHviwn 
rhetoric, and dialectic eventually became classed as the 
trivium or lower studies, and the arithmetic, geometry, 
music, and astronomy as the quadrivium or higher 
(Fig. 9). While this curriculum was not a broad one, 
the scope was much wider than would be supposed. 
' Grammar ' was an introduction to literature, ' rhetoric ' 
included some knowledge of law and history, 'dialec- 
tic' paved the way for metaphysics, 'arithmetic' ex- 
tended beyond mere calculation, 'geometry' embraced 
geography and surveying, 'music' covered a broad 
course in theory, and 'astronomy' comprehended some 
physics and advanced mathematics- 

The Methods and Texts.— The general method of 
teaching in the monastic schools was that of question 
and answer. As copies of the various books were scarce, 
the instructor often resorted to dictation, explaining the 
meaning as he read, and the pupils took the passage p- . .• j 
down upon tablets and committed it. The reading memorizing, 
books preparatory to the study of literature, many of 
which are still extant, were generally arranged by each 
teacher, and careful attention was given to the etymo- 
logical and literary study of the authors to be read, As 
to texts, the leading works upon grammar were at first 



S8 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Donatus and 
Priscian, 



Aristotle, 
Euclid, 
Boethius, and 
Ptolemy. 



Maintenance 
of classical 
literature and 
education. 



the elementary work of Donatus (fourth century) and 
the more advanced treatise of Priscian (sixth century), 
but by the thirteenth century there had sprung up a 
series of simphfied grammars, which, for the sake of 
memorizing, were often written in verse. As rhetoric 
was no longer much concerned with declamation, Cicero 
and Quintihan were rarely used as texts, but various 
mediaeval treatises upon ofiEicial letters, legal documents, 
and forms came into use. Dialectic was studied through 
translations of the Organon of Aristotle, Euclid furnished 
the text on geometry, the works of Boethius were gener- 
ally used for arithmetic and music, and in astronomy 
adaptations of the treatises of Aristotle and Ptolemy 
became the texts. 

Effect upon Civilization of the Monastic Schools. — 
Thus monasticism accomplished not a little for civiliza- 
tion. While the works produced in the monasteries were 
uncritical and superstitious, they compose most of our 
historical documents and sources in the Middle Ages. 
And, although monastic schools were decidedly hostile 
to classical hterature as representing the temptations 
of the world, and at all times their rigid orthodoxy 
prevented every possibility of science and the develop- 
ment of individuahsm, they, together with the cathedral 
schools, preserved a considerable amount of Graeco- 
Roman culture. Without the cathedral and monastic 
schools, the Latin and Greek manuscripts and learning 
could scarcely have survived and have been available at 
the Renaissance. 



THE MONASTIC EDUCATION 59 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, History of Education during the Middle Ages and the 
Transition to Modern Times (Macmillan, 1910), chaps. I-II; Mon- 
roe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 243-274. For the evolution 
of the ascetic life, see Lecky, History of European Morals (Apple- 
ton, 1869), vol. II, pp. 101-274; for the development of monas- 
ticism, Taylor, H. O., The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages 
(Macmillan, 1913), chap. VII, and Wishart, A. W., A Short History 
of Monks and Monasticism (Brandt, Trenton, 1902). The contri- 
bution of Irish monasticism is shown in Healy, J., Insula Sanc- 
torum et Doctorum (Sealy, DubUn, 1897), and Zimmer, H., The 
Irish Element in Mediceval Culture (Putnam, 1891). Succinct ar- 
ticles on Abbey Schools, Bishop's Schools, Church Schools, and 
Cloister Schools by Leach, A. F. (Monroe Cyclopaedia of Educa- 
tion, vols. I and II), furnish the most accurate ideas of monastic 
education as far as it is known. An account of the monastic li- 
braries is given in Clark, J. W., Libraries in the Mediceval and Re- 
naissance Monasteries (Macmillan and Bowes, Cambridge, 1894), 
and Putnam, G. H., Books and Their Makers during the Middle 
Ages (Putnam, 1896). The best account of The Seven Liberal Arts 
in English is that by Abelson, P. (Columbia University, Teachers 
College Contributions, No. 11, 1906). 



Ay\y ''■■■ 



CHAPTER VI 

Charlemagne's revival of education 

OUTLINE 

Learning and schools had by the eighth century been sadly 
disrupted, and, to restore them, Charlemagne invited Alcuin of 
York to become his adviser in education. Alcuin induced Charle- 
magne to conduct higher educati^oii at the Palace School, and to 
improve the cathedral, monastic, and parish schools. 

Even after Alcuin retired from the active direction of education, 
he continued his educational influence, but he became set and 
narrow. A broader spirit, however, appeared in his pupils, and 
intellectual stagnation never again prevailed. 

Condition of Education in the Eighth Century. — In the 

course of the seventh and eighth centuries mediaeval 
education met with considerable retrogression. The 
learning of the sixth century was disappearing, the copy- 
ing of manuscripts had almost ceased, and the cathedral 
and monastic schools had been sadly disrupted. The 
secular clergy, monks, nobility, and others who might 
have been expected to be trained, at times seem even to 
have lost the art of writing, although the leading church- 
men must generally have maintained their knowledge 
of ecclesiastical Latin and some acquaintance with the 
classical authors and various compilations of the .seven 
hberal arts. Just before this time the Franks had suc- 
ceeded in establishing a supremacy over the other bar- 
barian tribes and had spread their rule through what is 

60 



Charlemagne's revival of education 6i 

now France, Belgium, and Holland, and most of Western 
Germany. Under a dynasty of vigorous kings, they now 
drove back the Moslems, conquered the Lombards and 
Saxons, and subdued the Slavs and Bohemians, and 
finally Charlemagne (742-814) even planned to re- Charlemagne 
establish the Western Roman Empire under his sover- 
eignty. This monarch greatly strengthened and cen- 
tralized his dominions by a number of improvements in 
external administration, but, even before his recognition 
as emperor by the pope (800), he had realized that a 
genuine unity of his people could be brought about only 
through a much more effective and universal education. 
He had a keen sense of the unfortunate educational situa- 
tion, and made every effort to improve it. To assist 
him in his endeavors, in 782 he called Alcuin (735-804) andAladn. 
from the headship of the famous cathedral school at 
York (see p. 56) to be his chief adviser in education. 

Higher Education at the Palace School. — Through 
this noted scholar Charlemagne proceeded to revive the 
cathedral, monastic, and parish schools, and to increase 
the importance of the 'Palace School.' At this latter 
school the great king, all his family, and many of his 
relatives and intellectual friends studied under the Saxon . , 

Methods and 

educator. Alcum must, however, have used a more curriculum, 
discursive and less memoriter method with his adult stu- 
dents than the formal catechetical plan employed in 
instructing the youth. Among the subjects taugl.t were 
grammar, including some study of the Latin poets and 
the writings of the Church Fathers, rhetoric, dialectic, 
arithmetic, astronomy, and theology, but Alcuin ap- 
pears to have had but little command of the Greek learn- 
ing. Charlemagne himself seems to have become profi- 



62 



A student's history of education 



Capitularies 
to abbots and 
bishops. 



Course in the 

monastic, 
cathedral, and 
village schools. 



Free tuition. 



cient in Latin and other languages, but, in spite of strenu- 
ous efforts, he began too late in life to train his hand to 
write. 

Educational Improvement in the Cathedral, Monastic, 
and Parish Schools. — With the cooperation of Alcuin, 
Charlemagne also did everything in his power to increase 
facilities and improve standards in the existing types of 
schools. In 787 he issued an educational 'capitulary' 
or decree to the bishops and abbots, "urging diligence in 
the pursuit of learning and the selection of teachers for 
this work who are able, willing, and zealous to learn 
themselves and to teach others." Two years later he 
wrote a more urgent capitulary to the bishops and ab- 
bots, in which he specified the subjects to be taught in 
the cathedral and monastic schools and the care to be 
taken in teaching them. Schools seem to have been 
everywhere established or revived in the various cathe- 
drals, monasteries, and villages, and the instruction in 
several places became famous. All these schools came 
to offer at least a complete elementary course, and some 
added considerable work in higher education. Reading, 
writing, computation, singing, and the Scriptures were 
taught first, but, beyond this, instruction in grammar, 
rhetoric, and dialectic was often given, and at the more 
noted cathedral and monastic schools the quadrivium also 
appeared in the course. The schools in the villages, 
under the care of the parish priests, taught only the rudi- 
ments, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Psalms. 
Tuition was free in all schools for those intending to 
become monks or priests, but for the higher work a 
small fee was sometimes paid bv the laitv. It .seems to 
have been generally intended tjuat c<lucation should be 



Charlemagne's revival of education 63 

gratuitous and open to all. A letter of the Bishop of 

Orleans required it of his clergy; and through a capitulary 

in 802 Charlemagne strove to make it compulsory. 

^'^ Alcuin's Educational Work at Tours. — After fourteen 

years of strenuous service, Alcuin retired from the active 

headship of the educational system to the abbacy of the 

_, „ , 1 • 1 • I After retire- 

monastery at Tours. But even here his educational ment Alcuin's 

work did not cease. He soon estabHshed a model house tinued, but 
of learning and education, whither flocked the most narrow!'"^ 
brilhant youths in the empire, and since they rapidly 
became prominent as teachers and churchmen, his in- 
fluence upon the schools remained fully as marked as 
before. He also wrote a number of educational works, 
mostly on the seven liberal arts, and had a large corre- 
spondence about education with kings and the higher 
clergy. Alcuin, however, was by nature conservative, 
and with his retirement he became decidedly set and 
narrow. His fear pf dialectic and the more advanced 
views of certain Irish scholars is almost ludicrous, and 
his repudiation of the classic poets, even his former 
favorite, Vergil, is pathetic. 

Rabanus Maurus, Erigena, and Others Concerned in 
the Revival. — Fortunately, Alcuin's pupils, who at his 
death occupied practically all positions of educational im- 
portance, retained his broader spirit. This was true in His pupils re- 

c- ' i tamed his 

particular of Rabanus Maurus (776-856), whose leader- broader spirit. 
ship caused the monastic school at Fulda to become the 
great center of learning. Rabanus wrote even more 
proHfically than Alcuin upon grammar, language, and 
theology, but was not afraid to emphasize the study of 
classic literature or the new training in dialectic. He 
also greatly expanded the mathematical subjects of the 



■cW 



64 A student's history of education 

curriculum, and tended to ascribe all phenomena to 
natural laws, Rabanus, in his turn, influenced a large 
number of pupils, and a further impetus was given to 
the movement by a cross-fertihzation of Irish learning, 
which was also introduced, especially through the master- 
ship of Joannes Scotus Erigena (810-876) at the Palace 
School. 
Thus during the ninth century and the first half of 
Permanent ^j^^ tenth there arose, through the initiative of Charle- 

effects of the . . 

revival. magne and Alcuin, a marked revival in education, and 

for several generations the cathedral and monastic 
schools enthusiastically fostered education and learning. 
Curricula were expanded, and many famous scholars 
appeared. While, owing to the weakness of Charle- 
magne's successors and the attacks of the Northmen, 
learning gradually faded once more, intellectual stagna- 
tion never again prevailed. Through the revival of 
the great Prankish monarch, classical learning had to 
some extent been recalled to continental Europe from its 
insular asylum in the extreme West. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

r Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), chap. Ill; 

Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 274-279. Read also 
Gaskoin, C. J. C, Alcuin, His Life and His Work (Clay, London, 
1904), or West, A. F., Alcuin and the Rise of Christian Schools 
(Scribner, 1892), and MuUinger, J. B., The Schools of Charles the 
Great (Longmans, London, 1877). 



CHAPTER VII 

MOSLEM LEARNING AND EDUCATION 
OUTLINE 

Moslemism amalgamated in Syria with Greek philosophy and 
science, and the Moslem cities there became renowned for their 
learning. 

The masses of the Moslems were suspicious of the Greek learn- 
ing, however, and those who had absorbed the Hellenized philos- 
ophy were driven from the Orient into Spain, where they founded 
Moorish colleges. 

The Moslems thus stimulated learning in the Christian schools, 
and introduced Aristotle once more, but, after bringing learning 
back, Moslemism itself reverted to its primitive stage. 

The Hellenization of Moslemism. — One of the most 
important influences in awakening mediaeval Europe was 
the revival of learning and education that came through 
the advent of the Moslems. Mohammed, the founder of ^f^""**^®' 
Moslemism, had been almost ilHterate, and the Koran, Moslemism. 
or sacred book, was a curious jumble of Judaistic, Chris- 
tian, and other religious elements with which Moham- 
med had become acquainted during his early travels. 
As long as this religion was confined to the ignorant and 
unreflecting tribes of Arabia, it served its purpose with- 
out modification. But when it spread into Syria and 
came in contact with Greek philosophy, in order to ap- 
peal to the people there, it had to be interpreted in Hel- 
lenistic terms, and during the eighth, ninth, and tenth 

65 



66 A student's history of education 

centuries, through the influence of the Nestorian scholars 
(see p. 46), the Mohammedans were engaged in render- 
ing into Arabic from the Syriac, or from the original 
Greek, the works of the great philosophers, mathema- 
ticians, and physicians. The Mohammedan cities of 
Mohammedan^ Syria soon bccamc renowned for their learning. In 
cities of Syria, them arose such scholars as Avicenna (980-1037), who 
wrote many treatises on mathematics and philosophy, 
and a Canon of Medicine that remained authoritative for 
five centuries. Similarly, there grew up a society called 
the 'Brothers of Sincerity,' which in its course of study 
amalgamated the Moslem theology with Hellenistic 
philosophy. 

Hellenized Moslemism in Spain. — But the masses of 
the Mohammedans were as suspicious of the Greek 
learning as the orthodox Christians had been, and toward 
the end of the eleventh century Hellenized Moslemism 
was driven from the Orient and found a refuge in North- 
ern Africa and in Spain. Here the advanced Moham- 
medans became known as 'Moors,' and their works were 
destined to have a pronounced influence upon the Chris- 
Averroes and tians. There soon appeared such scholars as Ayerroes- 
coUeges. (1126-1198), who became the authoritative commentator 

on Aristotle for several centuries; and Moorish colleges 
were founded at Cordova, Granada, Toledo, and else- 
where. In these institutions, while learning was still 
at a low ebb in the Christian schools, were taught arith- 
metic, geometry, trigonometry, astronomy, phy^cs, 
biology, medicine, surgery, jurisprudence, logic, and 
metaphysics. Arabic notation was also introduced in 
place of the cumbersome Roman numerals and many 
inventions and discoveries were made. 



MOSLEM LEARNING AND EDUCATION 67 

Effect upon Europe of the Moslem Education. — These 
schools and colleges of the Moslems soon had their ef- 
fect upon Christian education. Through their influence, 
Raymund, Archbishop of Toledo, by the middle of the Learning ^ 

•' ' -"^ _ \ •' ^ _ stimulated in 

twelfth century had the chief Arabic treatises on philoso- christian 

education. 

phy translated into Castihan by a learned Jew, and then 
into Latin by the monks; and Frederick II had scholars 
render the works of Averroes into Latin. Such transla- 
tions had, however, passed through several media — 
Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Castihan, Latin — and could not 
be at all accurate. But, stimulated by this taste of 
Greek learning, the Christians sought a more immediate 
version, and a half century later when the Venetians 
took the city of Constantinople, the works of Aristotle 
were recovered in the original and translated directly 
into Latin. Meanwhile the orthodox Mohammedanism 
had been coming to the front in Spain and overwhelming 
the Hellenized form, and it was left to Christian schools 
to continue the work of the advanced Moorish institu- 
tions. Moslemism had returned to its primitive stage, 
but it had helped bring back learning, especially the 
works of Aristotle, to Christendom. As the classical 
learning had been restored from the West during the 
revival of Charlemagne, it now returned from its refuge 
in the East through the coming of the Moslems. 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), chap. V; 
Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 331-334- For a further 
account of Saracen education, see Coppee, H., History of the Con- 
quest of Spain by the Arab-Moors (Little, Brown, Boston, 1881), 



68 A sttjdent's history of education 

especially bk. X; Davidson, T., The Brothers of Sincerity (Inter- 
national Journal of Ethics, July, 1898), and Draper, J. W,, History 
of the Intellectual Development of Europe (Harper, 1875), vol. I, 
chaps. XI and XIII, and vol. II, chaps. II and IV. 



CHAPTER VIII 

EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES OF SCHOLASTICISM 

OUTLINE 

Scholasticism was a peculiar method of philosophic speculation 
in the later mediaeval period. At first, scholastic philosophers 
held that faith must precede reason, but eventually reason itself 
tended to become the means of testing the truth. 

Scholastic education was organized in the monastic and epis- 
copal schools, and consisted in the limited learning of the times, 
systematized on the basis of Aristotelian deduction. Scholasticism 
was extreme in its discussions, but it tended to rationalize the 
Church doctrines. 

The Nature of Scholasticism. — ^One of the movements 
that most tended to awaken the mediaeval mind, espe- 
cially during the latter part of the Middle Ages, was 
the development of the Church philosophy known as 
'scholasticism.' This movement does not indicate any Not a set of 

"^ doctrines, but 

one set of doctrines, but is rather a general designation a peculiar 
for the pecuhar methods and tendencies of philosophic 
speculation that became prominent within the Church 
in the eleventh century, came to their height during the 
twelfth and thirteenth, and declined rapidly the following 
century. The name is derived from doctor scholasticus , 
which was the title given during the mediaeval period to 
the authorized teachers in a monastic or episcopal school, 
for it was among these ' schoolmen ' that the movement 
started and developed. Its most striking characteris- 

69 



/ 



70 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Anselm 



and Abelard. 



tics are the narrowness of its field and the thoroughness 
with which it was worked. 

The History of Scholastic Development. — The history 
of scholasticism belongs properly to the field of philos- 
ophy, but its influence in bringing on the Renaissance 
and its effect upon education make a brief consideration 
of its development necessary here. It began as an effort 
to vanquish heresy in the interest of the Church dogmas, 
which until late in the Middle Ages it had not generally 
been necessary to explain. Even then it was assumed 
that the Church was in possession of all final truth, 
which had come to it by Divine revelation, and was in 
harmony with reason, when fully understood. It was, 
therefore, the aim of the earher schoolmen to show how 
these doctrines were consistent with each other and 
in accordance with reason. At first, as with Anselm 
(1033-1109), it was held that faith must precede reason, 
and where reason was incapable of penetrating the mys- 
teries of revealed doctrine, it must desist from its ef- 
forts. But the conviction gradually gained ground 
that human reason is reliable and that truth can be 
reached only through investigation. Abelard (1079- 
1142) declared that the only justification of a doctrine 
is its reasonableness, that reason must precede faith, 
and that it is not sinful to doubt. 

A new epoch for scholasticism dawned in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries through contact with the Greek 
philosophy of the Moors in Spain and the subsequent re- 
covery of some original treatises of Aristotle (see p. 67). 
For a time the Church endeavored to suppress the great 
philosopher, but, failing to do so, soon utilized his works 
for its own defense, and even made reason identical with 



EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES OF SCHOLASTICISM 7 1 

Aristotle, whose authority was not to be disputed. A 
group of most prominent schoolmen arose, and, as a 
result of the discussions of Aquinas (12 25-1 2 74), Duns Aquinas, 
Scotus (1274-1308), and William of Occam (i 280-1347), cSam' ^^^ 
it came to be held that truth is established by the fiat - - 
of God, and that ecclesiastical dogmas are, consequently, 
not matters of reason, but purely of faith. As a result 
of this breach between revelation and reason, there 
arose two types of truth, and a tendency to choose that 
type which was supported by reason. 

Scholastic Education. — The schoolmen were thus 
throughout attempting to rationalize the teachings of 
the Church, and to present them in scientific form. As 
an education, scholasticism aimed also at furnishing a Aim, 
training in dialectic and intellectual discipline that 
should make the student both keen and learned in the 
knowledge of the times. The scholastic course of study, 
which was given at first in the monastic and episcopal 
schools and later in the universities, consisted in the 
behefs of the Church and the limited learning of the content, 
times arranged in a systematized form largely on the 
djrductive basis of the Aristotelian logic. This knowl- 
t;^'ge could all be grouped under the head of philosophical 
^heology. The best illustration of the formal and dog- 
matic way in which these doctrines were usually pre- and method, 
.^^ited can be found in the Sententice of Peter the Lom- 
bard (1100-1160) and the Summa TheologicB of Aquinas 
1(7225-1274), which were the standard texts of the day 
uj:»on theology. The work of Aquinas has four main 
garts, under each of which is grouped a number of prob- 
lems. Every problem is concerned with some funda- 
jj.iental doctrine, and is further divided into several 



/ 



72 A student's history of education 

subtopics. After the problem has been stated, first the 
argiunents and authorities for the various solutions other 
than the orthodox one are given and refuted in regular 
order, then the proper solution with its arguments is set 
forth, and finally, the different objections to it are an- 
swered in a similarly systematic way. Peter the Lom- 
bard's work has a like arrangement. 
Its Value and Influence. — As a whole, the work of 
. ^ scholastic education has been underestimated. It has 

It systematized 

Church doc- been urged that it ruined all spiritual realities by its ex- 

tnnes, and lib- " , . .... , . i , .1 

erated phiioso- treme systemization of religion, that it dealt with mere 
ogy ° ^ abstractions, and that it indulged in over-subtle distinc- 
tions and verbal quibbles. But the scholastic arguments 
were not as purposeless or absurd as they seem. For ex- 
ample, the celebrated inquiry of Aquinas as to the number 
of angels that could stand on the point of a needle is sim- 
ply an attempt to present the nature of the Infinite in 
concrete form. It is the characteristic of reasoning beings 
to analyze, compare, abstract, and classic, and while 
scholasticism may have carried its abstractions, iiair- 
splittings, and scientific terminology to an extreme, it per- 
formed a great service for knowledge. It found a confused 
mass of traditional and irrational doctrines and practices, 
made them systematic, rational, and scientific, and greatly 
assisted accuracy in thinking. The discussions of the 
schoolmen resulted in Uberating philosophy from theol- 
ogy, and, without intending it perhaps, scholastic educa- 
tion aided the cause of human reason against dogmatism 
and absolute authority. It greatly stimulated intel- 
lectual interests, produced the most acute and subtle 
minds of the age, and helped to prepare the way for the 
Renaissance. 




Fig. 9. — The temple of wisdom. 

An allegorical representation of the mediffival course of study reproduced 
from the Margarita Philosnphtca of Gregorius Reisch, Freiburg, 1504. 
Donatus (elementary grammar) on the first floor; Priscian (advanced 
grammar) on second; Aristotle (logic). Cicero (rhetoric), and Boethius 
(arithmetic) on the third; Pythagoras (music), Euclid (geometry), and 
Ptolemy (astronomy) on the fourth; Pliny (natural history) and Seneca 
(ethics) on the fifth, and Peter the Lombard (theology) on top. 



EDUCATIONAL TENDENCIES OF SCHOLASTICISM 73 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), chap. VI; 
Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 292-313. For a good 
account of all The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages (Hodder, 
London, 1881), see the work of Townsend, W. J.; for the begin- 
nings of scholasticism, Mullinger, J. B., The University of Cant- 
bridge (Longmans, Green, 1888), vol. I, pp. 47-64; for the life and 
influence of Abelard, Compayre, G., Abelard (Scribner, 1893), 
chap. I; McCabe, J., Abelard (Putnam, 1901); and Rashdall, H., 
The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (Oxford, Clarendon 
Press, 1895), vol. I, chap. 11. 



\ 



CHAPTER IX 

THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES 

OUTLINE 

Universities began to spring up toward the close of the Middle 
Ages. Through local conditions, a course in medicine arose at 
Salerno; in civil and canon law at Bologna; and in theology at 
Paris. Bologna became the pattern for numerous universities in 
the South; and Paris for many in the North. 

Popes and sovereigns granted privileges by charter to the various 
universities. The term 'university' originally signified a 'corpora- 
tion' of students and teachers, and the students were usually 
grouped according to 'nations.' The teaching body was divided 
into four or five 'faculties.' 

The course in arts included the seven liberal arts and portions 
of Aristotle; in civil and canon law, the Corpus Juris Civilis of 
Justinian and the Decree of Gratian respectively; in medicine, the 
treatises of Greek and other medical writers; and in theology, 
mostly the Sententix of Peter the Lombard. The texts were read 
and explained by the lecturers, and a practical training in debate 
was furnished. 

While the courses and methods were narrow and formal, the 
mediaeval university contained the germ of modern inquiry and 
did much to foster independence of thought and action. 

The Rise of Universities. — A most important effect 
upon subsequent education came through the founda- 
tion of the mediaeval universities. These institutions 
grev^r out of the old cathedral and monastic schools, 
but found their models largely in the liberal and pro- 

74 



THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES 75 

fessional courses of the Moorish colleges. In general, 

they came into existence through the many broadening ^^^ general a 

influences of the later Middle Ages. Their rise was in- that was best 

•11 -1 r 1 Ti *- 1 ^^^^^ Middle 

tunately connected with the stimulus of the Moslem Ages, 
presentation of Greek philosophy and science, with the 
interest in dialectic and theological discussions, which led 
to the development of scholasticism, with the reaction 
from 'otherworldhness' resulting from the ideals of chiv- 
alry, and with the growth of cities and wealth, and the 
consequent emphasis upon secular interests and knowl- 
edge (see chap. xi). However, while they were all more or 
less the product of the same factors, no two sprang from 
exactly the same set of causes, and special conditions 
played a part in the evolution of each university. 

The Foundation of Universities at Salerno, Bologna, 
and Paris. — The oldest of these institutions, that at 
Salerno, near Naples, was simply a school of medicine, 
and originated through the survival of the old Greek mediSi°schw)l 
medical works in Southwestern Italy, and through the ^^ Salerno, 
attraction of the mineral springs and salubrity of this 
particular place. By the middle of the eleventh century 
Salerno was well known as the leading place for medical 
study. It was, however, never chartered as a regular 
university, although in 1231 Frederick II recognized it as 
the school of medicine for the university he had created 
at Naples some seven years earlier. 

On the other hand. Northern Italy became known as a 
center for the study of Roman law. The cities here, in 
order to defend their independence, were led to study this ^J^fjesaj ^^^ 
subject, and endeavored to find some special charter, Bologna 
grant, or edict from the old Roman emperors upon which 
to base their claims. Several northern centers were 



76 A student's history of education 

in dvil law renowiied for their investigation of the Roman civil law, 
but early in the twelfth century Bologna became pre- 
eminent through the lectures of Irnerius. By him the 
entire Corpus Juris Civilis, a compilation of Roman law 
made by eminent jurists in the sixth century at the 
command of the emperor Justinian, was collected and 
critically discussed. Influenced by this example, a monk 
of Bologna, named Gratian, undertook to codify all 
edicts and formulations of popes and councils in a con- 
venient text-book. The Decree of Gratian, which re- 
sulted, was almost immediately recognized as the author- 
. ity upon the subject, and canon law came to be studied 

aad canon law. j^gj.g ^j|-j^ ^j^g same thoroughness as civil law. The 

university at Bologna was regularly chartered by Fred- 
erick Barbarossa in 1158, probably as a recognition of the 
services of its masters in support of his imperial claims, 
and faculties of arts, medicine, and theology were estab- 
lished at various times. It was thus the first real univer- 
sity, and its reputation soon became widespread. 

Next in order of foundation came the university at 
Paris, which was by far the most famous of all. The 
STifefarts special interest here, as in this part of Europe generally, 
and theology ^3,8 dialectic and scholasticism. The university grew out 
of the cathedral school at Notre Dame, which had ac- 
quired considerable reputation under the headship of 
William of Champeaux, Abelard, and Peter the Lom- 
bard, but it was not until 1200, after canon law and 
medicine had been added to the liberal arts and theology, 
that it received complete recognition by the charter of 
Philip Augustus. 

Bologna and Paris as the Models for Other Univer- 
sities. — Salerno, as we have seen, was not a real univer- 



THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES 77 

sity, and it did not reproduce its type; but Bologna, and 
even more Paris, became the mother of universities, for "^ 
many other institutions were organized after their general 
plans. At Bologna the students, who were usually ma- 
ture' men, had entire charge of the government of the 
university. They selected the masters and determined 
the fees, length of term, and time of beginning. But in 
Paris, where the students were younger, the government 
was in the hands of the masters. Consequently, new 
foundations in the North, where Paris was the type, 
usually became 'master-universities,' while those of the 'Master- 

•' .... . universities 

South were 'student-universities.' During the thir- in the North, 
teenth and fourteenth centuries it became fashionable for universities' 
the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, to charter existing 
organizations or to found new institutions on one of 
these two plans, and by the time the Renaissance was 
well started about eighty universities had been estab- 
Ushed in Europe. Not all of these foundations were 
permanent, however, for some thirty have, in the course 
of time, become extinct, and those which remain are 
much changed in character. 

Privileges Granted to the Universities. — From the 
time of the earliest ofiBcial recognition of the universities, 
a large variety of exemptions, immunities, and other 
special privileges were conferred upon the organizations 
or upon their masters and students, by the charters of 
popes, emperors, kings, and municipalities. The students 
of the universities were in many instances taken under 
the immediate protection of the sovereign, and were al- Protection and 

. . autonomy, 

lowed to be tried in special courts of their own, independ- 
ent of civil jurisdiction, and to possess complete autonomy 
in all their internal affairs. Generally masters, students, 



78 



A student's history of education 



immunity from 
taxation and 
military ser- 
vice, and right 
to license mas- 
ters and to 
•strike'. 



Wandering 
students. 



The 'univer- 
sity' a cor- 
poration. 



and their retainers alike were relieved from all taxation 
and from military service. Likewise, universities were 
granted the right to license masters to lecture anywhere 
without further examination (jus ubique docendi), and the 
privilege of 'striking' (cessalio), when university rights 
were infringed. If no redress were given in the latter case, 
the suspension of lectures was followed by emigration of 
the university to another town. This could easily be 
done, since none of the mediaeval universities had build- 
ings of their own, and there was no need of expensive 
libraries, laboratories, and other equipment. 

Through such special rights the universities obtained 
great power and became very independent. Soon the 
liberty allowed to students degenerated into recklessness 
and license, and they became dissipated and quarrelsome. 
This is especially seen in the Hf e of the so-called ' wander- 
ing students,' who migrated from university to university, 
begging their way, and were shiftless, roHicking, and 
vicious. The one compensating feature of such degen- 
eracy was their production of jovial Latin and German 
songs to voice their appreciation of forbidden pleasures 
and their protest against restraint. 

Organization of the Universities. — The term uni- 
versitas, or 'university,' did not imply originally, as often 
claimed since, an institution where ' every thing ' is taught, 
but it was used of any legal corporation, and only in the 
course of time was it limited to an organization of masters 
and students. The phrase sludiiim generate was also 
often used of a university, to indicate a school where the 
students from all parts of civiHzation were received, and 
to contrast it with a studium particulare, which was con- 
fined to pupils of a limited neighborhood. The formation 



THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES 79 

of a university had been preceded by the organization of The nations, 
'nations,' or bodies of students grouped according to the 
part of Europe from which they came, but these nations 
soon began to combine for the sake of obtaining greater 
privileges and power. Every year each nation chose a 
'councilor,' who was to represent it and guard its inter- councilors, 
ests. On the side of the masters, the university became 
organized into 'faculties,' of which there might be at 
least four, — arts, law, medicine, and theology; and each 
faculty came to elect a 'dean' as its representative. The j^gans'^nd 
deans and the councilors jointly elected the 'rector,' or "sector, 
head of the university. 

Course in the Four Faculties. — The course of study 
to be offered by each faculty was largely fixed by papal 
decree or university legislation during the thirteenth cen- 
tury. The course in arts, which occupied six years, in- Arts, 
eluded the texts on the liberal arts mentioned for the 
monastic schools (see pp. 56 f.)and several of the treatises 
of Aristotle, as rapidly as they were recovered. In the 
law course, Corpus Juris Civilis was the authorized text 
for civil law, and the Decree of Gratian for canon law. Law. 
The faculty of medicine utilized the Greek treatises by Medicine. 
Hippocrates (c. 460-375 B. C.) and Galen (c. 130-200 
A. D.), the Canon of Avicenna (see p. 66), and the 
works of certain Jewish and Salernitan physicians. The 
students of theology put most of their time upon the Theology, 
four books of Peter the Lombard's Sententice (Fig. 9), 
although the Bible was studied incidentally. 

The Methods of Instruction. — The training of a 
mediaeval student consisted not only in acquiring the 
subjects mentioned, but in learning to debate upon them. 
The acquisition of the subject-matter was accompUshed 



8o 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Baccalaureate. 



through lectures, which consisted in reading and explain- 
ing the text-book under consideration (Fig. lo). Beside 
the text itself, the teacher would read all the explanatory 
notes, summaries, cross-references, and objections to the 
author's statements, which often quite overshadowed the 
original, and might even add a commentary of his own. 
The passage was read slowly and repeated whenever 
necessary. The whole exercise was carried on in Latin, 
which had to be learned by the student before coming to 
the university. The training in debate was furnished by 
means of formal disputations, in which one student, or 
group of students, was pitted against another (Fig. ii). 
In these contests, which also were conducted in Latin, not 
only were authorities cited, but the debaters might add 
arguments of their own. Thus, compared with the mem- 
orizing of lectures, debating aflforded some acuteness and 
vigor of intellect, but by the close of the fifteenth century 
it had become no longer reputable. The aim came to be 
to win and to secure applause without regard to truth or 
consistency. 

Examinations and Degrees. — At the close of the 
course, the student was examined in his ability to define 
and dispute; and if he passed, he was admitted to the 
grade of master, doctor, or professor. These degrees 
seem originally to have been about on a par with each 
other, and signified that the candidate was now ready to 
practice the craft of teaching. The baccalaureate was at 
first not a real degree, but simply permission to become a 
candidate for the Hcense to teach. During the thirteenth 
century, however, it came to be sought as an honor by 
many not intending to teach, and eventually became 
a separate degree. 




The Mediaeval Universities: 

Fig. lo. — The lecture. 
Fig. II. — The disputation. 



\JJ'^ L 



THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITIES 8 1 

The Value and Influence of the University Training. — 

Obviously the mediaeval universities had most of the 
defects of their times. From a modern point of view, the 
content of their course of study was meager, fixed, and ^thoritaUve, 
formal, and the methods of teaching were stereotyped 
and authoritative. They largely neglected the real 
literature of the classical age, and permitted but Little 
that savored of investigation or thinking. Yet the 
universities were a product of the growing tendencies 
that later burst the fetters of mediaevahsm. They were a 
great encouragement to subtlety, industry, and thorough- 
ness, and their efforts toward philosophic speculation 
contained the germs of the modern spirit of inquiry and but somewhat 

,. ° . . 1. . • ^ • productive of 

rationality. Ihey were even oi immediate assistance in inquiry and 
promoting freedom of discussion and advancing democ- 
racy, and to their arbitration were often referred disputes 
between the civil and ecclesiastical powers. Thus they 
aided greatly in advancing the cause of individuahsm 
and carrying forward the torch of civilization and 
progress. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), chap. IX; 
Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 313-327. Standard 
works on the universities in general are Laurie, S. S., The Rise and 
Early Constitution of Universities (Appleton, 1886), and- the more 
complete and accurate Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages 
(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1895), by Rashdall, H. For a brief 
source account of the privileges, courses, methods, and student 
life of universities, see Norton, A. O., Readings in the History of 
Education; Medieval Universities (Harvard University, 1909), or 
Mujoro, D. C, The Mediceval Student (Longmans, Green, 1899). 
For the history of individual universities, see Compayre, G., 



82 A student's history of education 

Abelard and the Origin and Early History of Universities (Scribner, 
1893); Lyte, H. C. M., A History of the University of Oxford (Mac- 
millan, 1886); Mullinger, J. B., University of Cambridge (Long- 
mans, London, 1888); and Paulsen, F., The German Universities 
(Macmillan, 1895; Scribner, 1906). 



CHAPTER X 

THE EDUCATION OF CHIVALRY 
OTJTLINE 

Owing to the weakness of the regular sovereignty after Charle- 
magne's day, the feudal system sprang up, and by the middle of 
the twelfth century it had developed a code of manners known as 
chivalry. 

Out of this there arose a training for knighthood in religion, 
honor, and gallantry. Before becoming a knight, the boy was early 
trained at home, then at some castle, first as 'page,' and later as 
' squire.' 

This chivalric education produced many contradictory results, 
but it tended to refine the times and to counteract ' otherworldli- 
ness.' 

The Development of Feudalism. — The mediaeval ed- 
ucation thus far described has had to do mostly with 
the schooling of the ecclesiastical and other select pro- 
fessional classes. Quite a different type of training was 
that given the knight. This has generally been known as 
the education of chivalry. Chivalry is a name for the 
code of manners in usage during the days of the feudal 
system. By this system is meant an order of society and 
government that gradually grew up in the Middle Ages 
alongside the regular political organization, and when, 
under the successors of Charlemagne, the monarchy 
became weak, tended to be substituted for it. Under Dependence 
feudalism small landowners and freemen lacking land fui neighbor 

83 



84 A student's history of education 

became a had come to depend upon some powerful neighbor for 

rec;ular form of i ,- r • 

government, protection, and even to seek from him a dependent 
tenure of land. Then, in time, the lords acquired a 
species of sovereignty over their tenants, and by the 
tenth century there had com.e to be a great social gulf 
between the nobility, who owned the land and lived in 
castles, and the peasantry, who tilled the soil and sup- 
ported them. The only serious business of the former 
was fighting with spear, sword, or battle-axe, in their own 
quarrels or those of their feudal superiors. To prepare for 
this warfare, mock combats may occasionally have been 
engaged in as early as the tenth century (Fig. 12). 

The Ideals of Chivalry. — But by the middle of the 
twelfth century, when the old heroic age had lapsed into 
an age of courtesy, with extravagant devotion to women 
and romantic adventure as its chief ideals, these encoun- 
ters were organized into a definite species of pastime 
called 'tournaments,' and soon degenerated into mere 
pageantry. Hence the rules of chivalry became fixed and 
formal, and the art of horsemanship and the management 
of the lance and spear were developed and settled. The 

honOT^'and ideals of knightly conduct and education could then be 

gallantry. stated as 'servicc and obedience' to God, as represented 
by the organized church, to one's lord, or feudal superior, 
and to one's lady, whose favor the knight wore in battle 
or tournament. The three ruling motives of chivalric 
education were, therefore, held to be ' religion, honor, and 
gallantry.' 

The Three Preparatory Stages of Education. — There 
were three periods in the preparatory training of a knight. 

home,^'^ ' ^ First, Until the child was seven or eight, he was trained in 
religion, politeness, and physique at home by his mother. 



THE EDUCATION OF CHIVALRY 85 

After this he became a 'valet' or 'page' at the home of a 
nobleman, who was generally his father's feudal superior. ' 

Here he performed personal duties for his lord and lady, 
and his education was conducted mostly by the latter. 
He learned the game of chess, acquired the etiquette of 
love and honor, and was taught to play the harp and pipe 
and to sing, to read and write, and to compose in verse. 
Outside the castle, the pages were trained in running, 
wrestling, boxing, riding, and rudimentary tilting (Fig. ^** 
14). In the third stage, at fourteen or fifteen the youth 
passed to the grade of ' squire,' and, while he still attended (3) as a squire, 
the lady and carved the meat or handed around the viands 
for the guests, his chief service was to the knight and his 
training came through him. He slept near him at night, 
groomed his horses, kept his armor and weapons in condi- 
tion, and attended him at the tournament or upon the 
battlefield. Through this service the squire himself was 
practiced in all the warlike arts. Toward the close of the 
period the embryo knight also chose his lady-love, and 
learned to write verses and dance. When the squire 
became twenty-one, he was knighted with many religious -^^ knighting, 
ceremonies. After a season of fasting, the candidate 
entered the church in full armor and spent a night in 
vigil and holy meditation. In the morning he confessed, 
had his sword blessed upon the altar by the priest, and 
took an oath to defend the church, protect women, and 
succor the poor. He then knelt before his lord, who laid 
his own sword upon the candidate and dubbed him 
knight. 

The Effects of Chivalric Education. — Such was the 
training of the knight in the 'rudiments of love, war, 
and rehgion.' It contained many apparent anomalies 



86 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Courage, 
cruelty; 



but 



self-respect, 
but pride; 



liberality, but 
extravagance; 

and other 
anomalies. 



Counteractioa 
of otherworld- 
liness. 



and contradictions, and every virtue seems to have been 
balanced by a correlative vice. The knights were reck- 
lessly courageous in battle, but their anger was ungov- 
ernable and their cruelty extreme. A great self-respect 
was supposed to characterize the true knight, but this 
often reacted into an overweening pride. Likewise, while 
the knights were rated largely according to their liberaUty 
and hospitality, these virtues degenerated into a great 
love of display and extravagance beyond measure. 
Again, although great respect for womanhood was incul- 
cated, not much consideration could be expected by the 
woman beneath a certain rank. Similarly, the knightly 
word of honor, if accompanied by certain forms, would 
be held sacred, but should these forms be omitted, 
a decided breach of faith was not uncommon. As a 
whole, however, the chivalric training had a beneficial 
effect upon the society of the times. It helped to or- 
ganize the turmoil and to refine the barbarism of me- 
diaeval Europe, and was an effective instrument in rais- 
ing the position of women. Moreover, while this peculiar 
training was artificial and worldly, by that very tendency 
it did much to counteract the 'otherworldly' ideal of 
monasticism and the general asceticism of the period. 
It encouraged an activity in earthly affairs and a frank 
enjoyment of this life, and thus helped to develop a 
striking characteristic of the Renaissance. 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 



Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), chap. VII; 
Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 284-291. Detailed 
descriptions of the stages of chivalric training can be found in 





The Education of Chivalry : 
Figs. 12 and 13. — Preliminaries and termination of a combat. 
Pig i^ — Boys playing tournament with a 'quintain,' or dummy 

opponent. 
(Reproduced from Strutt, Sports and Pastimes of England.) 



THE EDUCATION OF CHIVALRY 87 

Cornish, F. W., Chivalry (Sonnenschein, London, 1901) (Mac- 
millan, 1908) ; Furnival, F. J., Early Education in England {Fore- 
words to The Babees Book, Early English Text Society, Original 
Series, vol. 32); and Mills, C, The History of Chivalry (Lea and 
Blanchard, Philadelphia, 1844), vol. I, chaps. I-V, and vol. II, 
chap. VII. An ingenious, but uncritical reconstruction of the 
life of a knight in story form, is found in Gautier, L., Chivalry, 
chaps. V-XX. 



^A- ' -■ '■■ ■ 








V 


CHAPTER XI 



THE BURGHER, GILD, AND CHANTRY SCHOOLS 

OUTLINE 

In the later Middle Ages the commerce of Europe was greatly 
increased. Soon the towns received a large impulse from serfs 
that flocked into them, and before long an influential 'burgher 
class' arose. 

There also sprang up merchant and craft gilds, which afforded 
an industrial training through apprenticeship, and a more formal 
education through 'gild schools.' As the gilds merged with the 
^ town, these institutions became 'burgher schools,' and afforded a 

practical education in reading, writing, and reckoning. Various 
'adventure,' 'chantry,' and other schools were also absorbed by 
the burgher schools. 

Thus these institutions came to represent the educational in- 
terests of the industrial classes, and paved the way for the civic 
control of education. 

The Rise of Commerce and Industry. — A most im- 
portant influence in producing a transition from the 
mediaeval to modern times is found in the increase of 
commerce during the later Middle Ages. From the 
Roman days down, trade had never died out in Western 
Europe, especially Italy, despite the injuries wrought 
by barbarian invasions, as the nobles had always need 
, of luxuries, and the Church of articles of utility in its 

Impulse caused • t-> i 

by Crusades services. But the demand for vessels and transports 
luxuries. during the Crusades, and the desire for the precious 

^''"^^v„ . 88 



"^"■*^' 



<^ 



THE BURGHER, GILD, AND CHANTRY SCHOOLS 89 

stones, silks, perfumes, drugs, spices, and porcelain from 
the Orient afterward, gave a tremendous impulse to com- 
mercial and industrial activity. The people of Europe 
began to think of what articles others outside their own 
Httle groups might want in exchange for these luxuries, 
and to strive to produce such commodities. They also 
undertook themselves to make some of the new articles, 
such as hght and gauzy cotton and linen fabrics, silks, 
velvets, and tapestries. Thus the means of communica- 
tion between the European states was greatly facilitated, 
new commercial routes and new regions were opened, 
geographical knowledge was increased, navigation was 
developed, maritime and mercantile affairs were or- 
ganized, manufactures and industries were enlarged, 
currency was increased, and forms of credit were im- 
proved. All this tended toward a larger intellectual 
view and a partial dissipation of provincialism and 
intolerance. 

Development of Cities and the Burgher Class. — The 
most noteworthy consequence of this industrial and 
commercial awakening was the growth of towns and Contributed to 
cities. There was little town Hfe in Western Europe cities, 
during the Middle Ages before the twelfth century, as 
the old Roman towns had, through the invasions of the 
Germans, largely disintegrated, and but few new organ- 
izations had sprung up in their place. While some towns 
still existed in Italy and Southern France, most of the 
people of Europe Hved in the country upon feudal es- 
tates. These little communities were largely isolated 
and independent of the rest of the world. They pro- 
duced among themselves all that their members needed, 
and little or no money was necessary for their crude 



go A student's history of education 

forms of exchange. Their life was unbroken in its monot- 
ony, there was little opportunity for them to better 
their condition, and their industries were carried on in a 
perfunctory and wasteful fashion. But with the growth 
of commerce and population, these serfs began to find it 
more profitable to work in the towns and compensate 
the lord of the manor with money rather than work, and 
the lords, in turn, found it of advantage to accept money 
in lieu of services, especially as many of them had been 
impoverished by the Crusades. Great bodies of serfs 
flocked to the towns, and new centers sprang up around 
the manorial estates and monasteries as manufactures, 
trades, and commerce increased. 

Feudalism thus began to be threatened as early as the 
twelfth century, and within a hundred years the ex- 
tinction of serfdom was assured. The people soon re- 
belled against the rule of their lords and either expelled 
them altogether or secured from them for a monetary 
consideration a charter conferring more liberal rights and 
privileges. By these charters, the lord agreed to recog- 
nize the gild of merchants, and to permit the people to 
govern themselves. As industries, trade, and com- 
and to the de- mercc continued to develop, the craftsmen and mer- 

velopment of a . „ . i i i • mi 

burgher class, chants grew rapidly m wealth and importance. They 
were soon enabled to rival the clergy in education, and 
the nobility in the luxury of their dwellings and living. 
They began to read, and books were written or adapted 
for their needs. The 'burgher class' came to have a 
recognized position by the side of the clergy and nobility; 
and the king, in order to retain their support, was forced 
to take counsel with them. This development of indus- 
•try and commerce, growth of town and city life, and rise 



THE BURGHER, GILD, AND CHANTRY SCHOOLS 91 

of a ' third estate ' is one of the most noteworthy changes 

of the late Middle Ages. ^^-— '■ ' h-c'^c^^'^. f^T 

The Gilds and Industrial Education. — Such a new 
social attitude naturally gave rise to new forms of educa- 
tion. An informal type of training soon sprang up in 
connection with the development of 'gilds.' Besides the 
original gild of merchants, through which the town had 
presented a united front and gained its privileges, 
separate gilds for the various crafts had been established 
in each town. These craft gilds were the sole repositories 
of the traditional lore of the vocations, and became the 
chief channel for transmitting it. While their number 
and variety differed in each town, all the gilds sought to 
prevent anyone who had not been regularly approved 
and admitted to the corporation from practicing the 
trade he represented. In consequence of this attempt at 
regulation, industrial training in the craft of each gild 
grew up through an apprenticeship system. This was 
provided upon a domestic basis. The 'apprentice' en- 
tered the household of his 'master,' and learned the craft 
under his direction (Fig. 15). The time necessary for this 
varied greatly in different crafts. For example, in Paris it 
took two years to learn to become a cook, eight years an 
embroiderer, and ten years a goldsmith. While the ap- stages of 
prentice received no wages during this period, he was 
under the protection of the gild, and might appeal to the d) apprentice, 
organization against ill-treatment or defective training. 
At the end of his apprenticeship, he became a 'journey- (2) journey- 
man' and could earn wages, but only by working for a , ' 

(3) master. 

master, and not through direct service for the public. 
After an examination by the gild, which might include 
the presentation of a 'masterpiece,' or sample of his 



92 A student's history of education 

work, the journeyman eventually became a master. In 
other ways, the organization regulated and protected its 
craft. In order that journeymen and masters might not 
become too numerous, all masters, save those on the 
governing board of the gild, were forbidden to take more 
than one apprentice. The methods of practicing each 
trade and the hours to be devoted to it each day were 
specified, and the handiwork of each man carefully 
scrutinized. In many instances, the gild put its own 
stamp upon good work, and might often seize products 
that it considered defective. 

Gild Schools. — In this way there grew up a spe- 
cies of industrial education, with three definite stages 
in its organization and with inspection at every point. 
Amorefonnai Before long, too, the gilds developed a more formal 
cation was^ " means of education. The existing ecclesiastical schools 
Siglfpriests ^i<i ^^^ altogether meet the needs of the gilds, and they 
eadowments"'^ undertook the establishment of additional institutions 
for this purpose. Where the gilds had retained one or 
more priests to perform the necessary religious offices for 
their members, before long they also utilized these func- 
tionaries to keep a school for the benefit of their own and 
sometimes other children in the town. Later, endow- 
ments were furnished especially for a priest to teach 
school, or an amount sufl5cient for the purpose was paid 
out of the common funds of the gild. Some of these 
gild schools, like 'Merchant Taylors" of London, or the 
Grammar School at Stratford-on-Avon, where Shake- 
speare was educated (Fig. i6), still survive as secondary 
institutions. Many instances, too, are recorded where 
the members of a certain gild were appointed trustees of 
a school established by an individual, and were granted 




Fig. 15. — Apprenticeship training in a'gild. (The master bootmaker 
and his wife, two journeymen, and an apprentice.) 




Fig. 16.— Gild school and church at Stratford-on-Avon. (In this 'gram- 
mar' school Shakespeare learned 'little Latin and less Greek.') 



THE BURGHER, GILD, AND CHANTRY SCHOOLS 93 

the right of appointing and dismissing the master, ad- 
mitting the pupils, managing the property, and formu- 
lating statutes. In some such fashion Colet later vested 
the management of the famous St. Paul's school (see 
p. 118) in the gild of mercers. 

Burgher Schools. — As the gild organizations gradually 
merged with those of the towns, the gild schools were 
generally absorbed in the institutions known as 'burgher' '"^jw u'^j^b^ 
or town schools. At first these burgher schools were not the burgher 

schools. 

very dissimilar to those established by the Church, ex- 
cept that they were more conveniently located, but later 
various types of vernacular schools arose to meet special 
practical demands, especially writing and reckoning. 
The Latin burgher schools were also somewhat practical 
in their course, and often admitted some pupils who de- 
sired to learn only to read, write, and reckon. Writing 
had become an important vocation, since printing had 
not yet been invented; and there was a definite demand 
for writers in public offices, private secretaries, letter Practical 
writers for the illiterate, and teachers of writing. Reck- 
oning grew directly out of the new commercial life, and 
was often taught in the writing schools. It was not 
taught from the standpoint of theory or disciphne, as 
was the arithmetic in the Latin schools, but for the sake 
of practical calculation and bookkeeping. But even all 
the faciUties of the regular Latin and vernacular schools 
of the town were not sufficient to meet the demand for 
a more practical education. In consequence, private 
'adventure' schools, taught by wandering teachers or 
by women, likewise often sprang up, and some teachers 
were even licensed by the town authorities to teach 
the vernacular. In most instances, however, these 



course. 



94 A student's history of education 

institutions were also combined with the burgher 
schools. 

Chantry Schools. — Another type of institution that 
came into prominence toward the close of the Middle 
Ages was the 'chantry school.' Schools of this sort at 
first arose out of bequests by wealthy persons to support 
f^'u^atioS for priests who should 'chant' masses for the repose of their 
de^^^ ^°^ ^^^ souls. Since these religious duties did not absorb all the 
time of the priests, they were able to do some teaching. 
And before long, the founders of chantries themselves 
came to direct that the priests carrying out their will 
should be required to teach. Often two chantry priests 
were provided, one to teach a 'grammar' school, and the 
other a 'song' or vernacular school. From the first most 
of these chantry schools were free of all tuition charges, 
the priest being requested to " teach gratis, without 
asking anything beyond his stipend for his pains," but 
occasionally they were gratuitous only to the children 
of his parishioners or to poor children whose parents or 
guardians asked for the privilege. 

Influence of the New Schools. — The chantry schools 
likewise were often united with various other schools 
within a town, and became jointly known as 'burgher 
schools.' Many new foundations of a similar nature were 
also made. These burgher schools were largely controlled 
and supported by the public authorities, although still 
generally taught by the priests. They came to represent 
Paved the way j-j^g interests of the mercantile and industrial classes, and 

tor a more 

secularized gave instruction in subjects of more practical value than 

education. , . , (-.!••• 

had any of the schools hitherto. Such mstitutions 
sprang up everywhere during the later Middle Ages. 
They were often strongly opposed by the ecclesiastical 



THE BURGHER, GILD, AND CHANTRY SCHOOLS 95 

authorities, who struggled hard to abolish them or bring 
them under control, but they continued to grow and 
hold their own. The number of lay teachers in them 
gradually increased, and thus paved the way for the 
tendency toward the secularization and civic control of 
education that appeared later on. The new schools, 
therefore, that arose in connection with the development 
of commerce and industry and the growth of towns, 
were one of the largest factors that led into the broaden- 
ing of outlook known as the Renaissance. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), chap. X; 
Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 337-339. Adams, G. B., 
Civilization during the Middle Ages (Scribner, 1894), furnishes an 
illuminating chapter (XII) upon the Growth of Commerce and Its 
Results. The development of towns and gilds in various countries 
of Europe is described in detail by Ashley, W. J., English Economic 
History and Theory (Putnam, 1892), vol. I, chap. II; Green, 
Alice S., Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (Macmillan, 1894); 
Gross, C, The Gild Merchant (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1890); 
Staley, E., The Guilds of Florence (Methuen, London, 1906); and 
Unwin, G., The Gilds and Companies of London (Methuen, London, 
1908; Scribner, 1909). Accounts of the new types of schools are 
found in Leach, A. F., English Schools at the Reformation (Consta- 
ble, 1896), chaps. 7-9; Nohle, E., History of the German School Sys- 
tem (Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1897-1898, 
vol. I), pp. 22-26; and Watson, F., English Grammar Schools to 
1660 (Cambridge University Press, 1909), chap. VII. 



PART III 
THE TRANSITION TO MODERN TIMES 



CHAPTER XII 

THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION 

OUTLINE 

By the fourteenth century there appeared an intellectual awak- 
ening, known as the Renaissance. It was accompanied by a 're- 
vival of learning' and an education called 'humanistic' 
" Italy first showed evidence of the new movement. The charac- 
teristics of the Renaissance were embodied in Petrarch and Boc- 
caccio, but little was done with the Greek classics until Chrysoloras 
came from Constantinople. 

The tyrants of various cities often had humanistic schools 
started at their courts. Of these the most typical was that under 
Vittorino da Feltre. These schools eventually forced the univer- 
sities to admit the humanities to their course. But humanism 
gradually degenerated into 'Ciceronianism.' 

Humanist!': education also gradually spread to the countries 
north of Italy, but it there took on more of a moral color. In 
.France, the protection of Francis I encouraged the introduction 
of humanism into educational institutions by various scholars. 
The German universities likewise began to respond to humanistic 
influences. 

The Hieronymians first introduced the classics into the schools, 
and Erasmus, who was trained by them, became the leader in 
humanistic education. Through other humanistic schools started 
by Sturm and others, the 'gymnasium,' the typical classical school 
of Germany, was evolved, and the humanistic education became 
fixed and formal. 

In England the movement gradually developed at Oxford and 
■ Cambridge, and Colet started St. Paul's school, which became the 
• model for all secondary schools. Humanism in England, however, 

99 



loo A student's history of education 

soon retrograded into a formalism, and the 'grammar ' and 'public' 
schools there are little changed to-day. 

The first secondary schools in the American colonies were mod- 
eled after the grammar schools of the mother country. 

The Passing of the Middle Ages. — It can now be 

seen that a new spirit had crept into European civiKza- 
tion, and that the Middle Ages were passing. We have 
previously noted (pp. 53 f.) that, in order to bring the Ger- 
man barbarians up to the level of the past, it was neces- 
sary for the Church to set an authoritative standard and 
repress all variation on the part of the individual. Yet 
such bondage of the human spirit was unnatural, and 
there were periodic tendencies to rebel against the sys- 
Medisvalism tem. In fact, mcdiaevaUsm contained within itself the 
germ oTits own germ of its own emancipation. During the eighth cen- 
emanapation. j.^j.y i-j^gj-g came about a new political order, which cul- 
minated in Charlemagne's revival of education. While 
conditions were never again as desperate after this stimu- 
lus, with the disruption of Charlemagne's empire another 
decline set in. But by the thirteenth century a new 
revival, material and intellectual, had also appeared. 
Several developments gave evidence of the expansion 
within, and assisted in producing it. (The broadening of 
horizon through contact with the Moors, the develop- 
ment of scholasticism, the evolution of universities, the 
worldly appeal of chivalry, and the growth of cities, 
gilds, and commerce were all helping by accumulation 
to dispel the mediaeval spirit.^ 

And by the fourteenth century a new dawn had been 
ushered in. The period that followed was marked by a 
general intellectual and cultural progress that began to 
free men from their bondage to ecclesiasticism and to 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION t©I 

induce them to look at the world about them. The 
adherence to an 'otherworldly' ideal, the restriction tendlndes^'of 
of learning, the reception of the teachings of the Church theAwakening. 
without investigation, and the conformity of the individ- 
ual were by this time rapidly disappearing. Such tend- 
encies were clearly being replaced by a genuine joy 
in the life of this world, a broader field of knowledge 
and thought, a desire to reason and deal with all ideas 
more critically, and enlarged ideals of individualism. 
The days of mere absorption and assimilation had passed. 
The Renaissance and the Revival of Learning. — 
This tremendous widening of horizon has been generally 

known as the Renaissance or 'new birth.' The term is WMe the Re- 
naissance was 

used to indicate that the spirit of the Graeco-Roman caused by in- 

* , temal factors. 

development had returned, and that opportunity for ex- it was pro- 

, ,.,..,, -r. moted by the 

pression was granted to the mdividual once more. But Revival of 
this period is also appropriately known as the 'Revival ^^™°^' 
of Learning.' For, while the awakening preceded and 
was caused by internal factors, rather than by the re- 
covery of classical literature and learning, intellectual 
freedom was very greatly heightened and forwarded 
after a restoration of the classics once began. The 
only food at hand that could satisfy the awakened in- 
telligence of the times was the literature and culture 
of the classical peoples. The discovery that the writings 
of the ancient world were filled with a genuine vitality- 
and virility, and that the old authors had dealt with . 
world problems in a profound and masterly fashion, 
and with far more vision than had ever been possible > 
for the mediaevaUsts, gave rise to an eager desire and 
enthusiasm for the classics that went beyond all bounds. 
A knowledge of classical Uterature had never altogether 



I02 A student's history OF EDUCATION 

disappeared, and various works had been preserved by 
the monks and others. To search out the manuscripts 
of the Latin and Greek writers, the monasteries, cathe- 
drals, and castles were now ransacked from end to end. 
The manuscripts found were rapidly multiplied, and the 
greatest pains taken to secure the correct form of every 
passage. The devotees of the new movement were 
Humanists and generally called 'humanists,' and the training embodying 
education. the classics has since been termed 'humanistic educa- 
tion.' 

Causes of the Awakening in Italy. — While the general 
tendency toward an awakening was apparent throughout 
Western Europe, it first became evident in Italy. This 
was due to the fact that Italy was at the time a seat of 
intellectual activity resulting from several factors. It 
Political storm ^y^g a storm Center for civic and interstate quarrels, and, 

center. . . • i • • 

as a result of this political unrest, the citizens were kept 
constantly on the outlook for their own safety and 
interests, and their wits were greatly sharpened. Even 
the exile, into which one civic faction or another was 
constantly forced, had the effect of broadening their 
"- vision and bringing out the greatest possibilities within 

Commercial them. Again, the commercial intercourse of the Italian 
cities with other countries had, for various physio- 
graphic and historic reasons, become extraordinarily 
active. This tended to open the minds of the Italians, 
break up their old conceptions, free them of prejudice, 
and increase their thirst for learning. Furthermore, 

Sts°^ ^^^ the ghost of the classic ages still haunted its old home. 
A knowledge of the Latin tongue had never ceased to 
exist in Italy, and many manuscripts of the Latin and 
Greek authors had been preserved. There was only 



- '''r^' 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION IO3 

needed an intellectual awakening sufficient to shake 
off the thraldom to the Church and produce an appre- 
ciation of classical Hterature and culture, in order to 
bring back this spirit of the past into real pulsating life. 7'" 

The Revival of the Latin Classics. — The earUest of 
the great humanists was Petrarch (1304-1374). In bodied the 
him we find the very embodiment of the Renaissance spirit!^^°^^ 
spirit. He completely repudiated the 'otherworldly' 
ideal of mediasvalism, and was keenly aware of the 
beauties and joys of this Hfe. He did not hesitate to 
attack the most hoary of traditions, nor to rely upon 
observation, investigation, and reason. He likewise 
felt a kinship with the thinkers and writers of the classic 
age, when independence and breadth were given more 
scope, and held that their works must be recovered 
before their spirit could be continued. This led to a tre- 
mendous enthusiasm for the Latin classics, and he spent and was an en- 
much of his life in restoring ancient culture. He de- Ladn da°sdcs.^ 
voted himself during his extensive travels largely to 
collecting manuscripts of the old Latin writers, which 
previously had been widely scattered, and endeavoring 
to repair in them the ravages of time. And he inspired 
every one he met with a desire to gather and study the 
works of the classic authors. He also wrote a number 
of Latin works that were filled with the classic spirit. 
Among them were several collections of Letters, a work 
of erudition On Famous Men, and an epic poem in honor 
of Scipio Africanus that he called Africa. Some of 
his letters were indited to Cicero, Homer, and other 1^ 
classical authors as if they were still living. After he 
had been crowned as poet laureate by the University His influence, 
of Rome in 1341, he spent most of his time visiting 



I04 A student's history of education 

various Italian cities and spreading the humanistic 
spirit. Of the younger scholars and literary men influ- 
enced by him probably the most noted was Boccaccio 
(1313-1375). Through Petrarch this youthful poet 
developed a perfect passion for the ancient writers, and 
devoted the rest of his life to classical culture. He ob- 
tained a wide knowledge of the Latin writers, and 
searched out, preserved, and had copied as many manu- 
scripts as possible. 

The Development of Greek Scholarship. — With aU 
this revival of Latin literature by the coterie of Petrarch, 
for some time there was little done with the Greek. 
Little was at That language had almost disappeared in Europe, and 
tr^Greek^" °^ ^^^ greatest Greek authors were known only through 
classics. Latin translations. But a knowledge of the Greek lan- 

guage and literature still persisted in the Eastern empire, 
and the humanists of Italy were, through the works 
of the Latin authors, constantly directed back to the 
writings of the Greeks. They became eager to read 
them in the original, and several humanists began the 
study of Greek. Nevertheless, Petrarch pathetically 
confessed: "Homer is dumb to me, while I am most 
certainly deaf to him." And while, with the aid of 
his Greek teacher, Boccaccio made a translation of 
Homer, it showed little real appreciation of the original. 
Chrysoioras Not until Chrysoloras (1350-1415) came as an envoy 
from the Eastern emperor and was induced in 1396 to 
settle in Italy and teach Greek, was any systematic 
training possible. During the next sixteen years this 
man of learning taught in the leading centers, estab- 
lished schools, made translations of Greek authors, 
and his pupils, and wrote a Greek grammar. From his efforts sprang 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION IO5 

a number of famous scholars, such as Vergerio, Niccolo 
de' Niccoli, Bnmi, and Guarino da Verona and his son. 
These men collected or copied hundreds of volumes, 
started libraries and schools, made excellent transla- 
tions, wrote treatises on humanistic education, and 
trained a number of humanists, who became distin- 
guished later. , 
y The Court Schools and Vittorino da Feltre. — A power- 
ful support for the work of these humanists resulted 
from the rivalry of the Italian cities. The princes at 
the head of these centers were often usurpers, and de- 
pended largely upon city pride to maintain their power. 
To appeal to the classical enthusiasm of their people, p7^*h*^ 
they did everything possible to propagate the humanis- manism and 

, ..... started court 

tic movement and make their cities illustrious. Prob- schools, 
ably the most tj^ical examples of these humanistic 
tyrants are found among the Visconti at Milan and the 
Medici at Florence. In some instances these court circles 
promoted the new learning informally, but often, where 
a scholar had been taken into the family of a prince as 
private tutor, children of the neighboring aristocracy 
were associated and a regular school was started. 'Court 
schools' of this sort soon existed at Florence, Venice, 
Padua, Pavia, Verona, Ferrara, and several other cities, 
but the best known of all was that organized by Vit- 
torino da Feltre (1378-1446) at Mantua. 

The Court School at Mantua. — Vittorino undertook 
this school at forty-five, when he had received the best 
possible education of the times in Latin, Greek, and 
mathematics, and had greatly distinguished himself 
as a teacher and a man of piety. He received into the 
school not only the royal princes and the scions of the Typesof pupils. 



lo6 



A student's history of education 



leading Mantuan families, but, by special permission, 
the sons of his personal friends and promising boys 
of every degree. He dwelt with his pupils, and was 
most strict in his selection of masters and of attendants, 
that the morals of his pupils might be of the highest. 
Likewise, 'the father of his pupils,' as Vittorino held 
himself to be, looked out for their food, clothing, and 
health, and shared in tlieir games, interests, and pleas- 
ures. It was his intention to secure for his pupils that 
The aim was harmouious development of mind, body, and morals 
devdopmentof that the old Greeks had known as a 'liberal education,' 
a'nd'moS' ^ut he emphasized the practical and social side of the 
individual's efficiency, and wished to prepare his pupils 
for a Hfe of activity and service rather than to create 
mere rhetoricians and pedants. 

This he felt could be accomplished largely through a 
grammatical and literary study of the Greek and Roman 
writers. The pupils learned from the first to converse 
in Latin, and there were games with letters for the young- 
est and simple exercises to train them in clear articula- 
tion and proper accent and emphasis. Before they were 
ten, they were also drilled in memorizing and reciting 
with intelligence the easier portions of the classic authors. 
This elocutionary work, which was increased in length 
and difficulty as the boys grew older, gave them an ex- 
cellent grasp of vocabulary, rhythm, and style. As 
they advanced, the pupils read a variety of Latin writers, 
and soon took up a study of the Greek authors and of 
the Church Fathers. The mathematical subjects were 
also taught with an enlarged scope, especially in their 
applications to drawing, mensuration, and surveying. 
Because of the lack of books, the teaching was carried 



Course and 
methods. 



Classics and 

mathematical 

subjects. 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION IO7 

on largely by dictation. Vittorino, however, carefully 
studied the abihty, interests, and future career of his 
pupils, and selected the subjects and methods best 
suited to each intelHgence. He thus inaugurated a 
thoroughly elastic course for the school. Physical and morar^atfcT'le- 
moral education were Ukewise insisted upon quite as i^gious training, 
fully as intellectual. Vittorino introduced v^specially 
fencing, wrestling, dancing, ball-playing, running, and 
leaping, in all of which he was himself an expert, but 
the purpose of these was to aid and stimulate the mental 
powers. He also by both precept and example inculcated 
piety, reverence, and religious observances. He believed, 
moreover, that truth and moral beauty could be derived 
not only from the Christian authors, but also, by means 
of expurgation, from the classic writings. 
^ The Relation of the Court Schools to the Universi- 
ties. — The court school ^t Mantua had thus a most po- 
tent influence upon the educational practice of the times, 
and trained a large number of distinguished ecclesiastics, 
statesmen, scholars, and rulers. It doubtless was broadly 
typical of the court schools and of the humanistic 
education of Italy in general. These court schools, 
while taking pupils very early, often retained them until 
they were twenty-one, and covered as much, if not 
more, ground than the arts course of the university. 
They were, in a way, competitors of the older institu- Rivalry and 

^ / ^ . . adoption of the 

tions. A student might, for the sake of a degree, go from new learning 
a court school to a university, but, as a rule, if what universities, 
he wished were a general course, he would be satisfied 
with the greater prestige that came from being a pupil 
of one of the distinguished humanists that the court 
schools were generally able to retain at their head. In 



io8 A student's history of education 

fact, the want of hospitality, if not actual hostility, of 
universities to the new learning, often stimulated the 
growth of court schools. In many instances where the 
university was especially conservative, a court school 
was set up by its side as a professed rival. Gradually, 
however, the humanistic training crept into all the 
universities of Italy, and the classical literature of the 
Greeks and Romans largely took the place of the former 
grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic. Before the close of 
the fifteenth century, Florence, Padua, Pavia, Milan, 
Ferrara, Rome, and other cities had admitted the hu- 
manities to their universities, and the other university 
seats were not long in following their example. 

Decadence of Italian Humanism. — Toward the close 

of the fifteenth century, however, this Hberal education 

Humanism of the humanists in Italy began to be fixed and formal. 

eventually be- , , ^ ^ 

came formal- Until the middle of the century the ideals, content, 
largely a driu and meaning of this training were constantly expanding, 
m grammar. ^^^ after that there was a gradual narrowing and harden- 
ing, and during the early years of the sixteenth century 
the degeneration became complete. As the subject- 
matter became institutionalized, the literature of the 
Greeks and Romans failed more and more to be inter- 
preted in terms of life. Emphasis was placed upon the 
form rather than the content of the classical writings, and 
grammatical drill was more and more emphasized as a 
means of formal discipHne. Before long the course was 
limited largely to Cicero, and the new learning fell 
'Ciceronian- into that decadent state known as 'Ciceronianism.' 

ism. 

It consisted simply in an attempt to teach a perfect 
style with Cicero as a model, and to give one a conver- 
sational knowledge of Ciceronian Latin. The structure. 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION lOQ 

metaphors, and vocabulary of all Latin writing had to 
be copied from the phrases of Cicero, and the literature 
of the day became Httle more than a sequence of model 
passages from that author. 

The Spread and Character of Humanism in the North- 
em Countries. — Such was the effect of the Renaissance 
upon education in the country of its birth. But the 
humanistic training could not be confined to Italy, j^^n^fon S^ 
By the middle of the fifteenth century, with the invention p^^"^^^ j^^p^ 
of printing, the texts of the classic authors were rapidly the Alps, 
multiplied and spread everywhere. The Renaissance 
and the classic literature leaped the Alps, and made their 
way into France, the Teutonic countries, England, and 
elsewhere. At first, humanistic scholars wandered into 
the North, soon others were invited in large numbers by 
patrons of learning, and, at length, students from the 
Northern countries thronged into Italy for instruction. 
Towards the close of the fifteenth century the humanists 
outside the peninsula became very numerous, and during 
the sixteenth century the movement came to its height 
in the Northern lands. 

But the character and effects of the Renaissance and 
humanism in the North differed greatly from those in 
the country of their origin. The peoples of the North, 
especially those of Germanic stock, were by nature 
more religious than the brilliant and mercurial Italians. 
With them the Renaissance led less to a desire for per- 
sonal development, self-realization, and individual aSore^odal 
achievement, and took on more of a social and moral ^'^ ^^^ North, 
color. The prime purpose of humanism became the 
improvement of society, morally and religiously, and 
the classical revival pointed the way to obtaining a new 



-^ - 



no A student's history of education i 

Use of Greek ^LTid more cxaltcd meaning from the Scriptures. Through 

and Hebrew. ° 

the revival of Greek, Northern scholars, especially the 
German and English, sought to get away from the ec- 
clesiastical doctrines and traditions, and turn back to 
the essence of Christianity by studying the New Testa- 
ment in the original. This suggested a similar insight 
into the Old Testament, and an interest in Hebrew was 
thereby aroused. In consequence, to most people in 
the North a renewed study of the Bible became as im- 
portant a feature of humanism as an appreciation of the 
'' classics. 

_■ The Development of Humanism in France. — In 

France humanism appeared early. In 1458 a professor- 
ship of Greek was established at the University of Paris, 
but the humanistic movement did not amount to much 

French'^'k'ings^ in Fraucc until it was stimulated by the expeditions of 

into Italy. Charles VIII (1494) and Louis XII (1498) into Italy. 
These undertakings of the monarchs did not attain the 
military and political objects intended, but through 
them France came into direct contact with humanism 
at its sources, and a definite impression was made upon 
French art, literature, and education. Even then, owing 
to the conservatism of the university, the new learning 
met at first with formidable opposition. Happily, it 

Francis I, found an influential patron in the youthful Francis I 
(r. 1515-1547). 

French Humanistic Educators and Institutions.— 
Under the protection of Francis, many prominent 

and Budaeus. humanistic scholars and educators, Hke Budaeus (1468- 
1540), appeared, classical manuscripts were collected, 
Greek and Latin authors were translated, treatises on 
humanistic education were produced, and the College of 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION III 

France, with chairs of Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, was 
established (1530). Humanism was also introduced into 
various colleges in Paris and Bordeaux by such scholars 
and practical teachers as Corderius (1479-1564) and Corderius, and 
Ramus (1515-1572), and many text-books and editions 
oTtlie classics were pubhshed. Soon most of the schools 
of France responded to the new training. It would 
hardly be possible to consider many of them, but a brief 
description of the course and administration in vogue at 
the College of Guyenne, taken from an account of one of CoUege of 
its teachers, may prove illuminating. This college con- 
tained ten classes in secondary work, and two years more 
in philosophy, which partially overlapped the faculty 
of arts in the university. Latin and religion were taught 
throughout the secondary school, and Greek, mathe- 
matics, rhetoric, and declamation could be taken in the 
last three or four classes. The pupils were introduced to 
the rudiments of Latin through the vernacular, and 
developmental methods and enlivening disputations 
were used. Probably the general conditions here were 
typical of the French humanistic schools everywhere 
during the sixteenth century. - •-"** *^^ 

Humanism in the German Universities. — Before hu- 
manism was well established in France, however, it had 
also spread through the Teutonic countries. By the end 
of the sixteenth century the German universities had Erfurt and 

•' ^ other existing 

begun to adopt the new learning. In 1494 Erfurt estab- universities. 
Ushed a professorship of Poetry and Eloquence, which 
covered the field of classic literature, and lectures on 
humanistic subjects were before long given in Leipzig, 
Heidelberg, Tubingen, Ingoldstadt, and Vienna. Like- 

New 

wise, a number of new universities, Wittenberg, Marburg, universities. 



112 



A student's history of education 



At first instruc- 
tion only in 
Bible and ver- 
nacular, 



but humanism 
added. 



Wessel, 

Agricola, 

Reuchlin, 



and 



Wimpfeling. 



Konigsberg, and Jena, were started upon a humanistic 
basis, and before the middle of the sixteenth century 
humanism prevailed in practically all of the German 
universities. 

The Hieronymians and Their Schools. — The earliest 
factor in Germanic humanism, however, appeared in the 
education furnished by the Hieronymians, or Brethren of 
the Common Lot. For the instruction of the poor, this 
order had started schools, or established teachers in 
institutions already existing, throughout the Nether- 
lands, Germany, and France. At first, they stressed 
instruction in the Bible and the vernacular, but, as the 
Italian influence began to be felt in the upper countries, 
they broadened the course by the addition of classic 
literature and Hebrew, and the schools soon became 
recognized centers of humanism and intellectual inter- 
ests. The pupils that were trained there strengthened the 
new learning as teachers in the universities and schools 
throughout Germany and the Netherlands. The first 
educator of importance to introduce humanism into the 
Hieronjrmian training seems to have been Wessel (1420- 
1489). He was preeminently interested in teaching, 
and among his earliest pupils of distinction were Agricola 
(1443-1485), who had a most potent influence in intro- 
ducing classics, and ReuchUn (1455-1522), who taught 
the classics and Hebrew at various universities, and 
produced a monumental grammar and lexicon upon the 
latter subject. An even more noteworthy teacher was 
WimpfeHng (1450-1528), who became professor, dean, 
and rector at Heidelberg. He lectured upon the classical 
authors and the Church Fathers, and wrote a number of 
treatises upon education, in which he held to the attitude 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION II3 

of Northern humanism that all learning is vain which 
does not lead to the advancement of mankind. But, 
while a true reformer, he never broke from the Church. 

Erasmus, Leader in the Humanistic Education of 
the North. — A similar attitude was held by Erasmus Attitude of 

•^ Erasmus. 

(1467-1531), the greatest of the humanists trained by the -- 
Hieronymians. While he was bitterly opposed to the 
corruption and obscurantism of ecclesiastics, he believed 
that the remedy lay, not in a division of the Church, but 
in the study of the classics and the Church Fathers, and 
in the general removal of ignorance. Accordingly, to His text-books, 
advance education, he assisted in the preparation of 
Lily's Latin grammar, translated into Latin the Greek 
grammar of Theodore of Gaza, and wrote a work on 
Latin composition, called De Copia Verborum et Rerum, 
and an elementary text-book of Latin conversation on 
topics of the day, known as Colloquies. Similarly, he 
produced treatises on the New Testament, and pop- 
ularized the Gospels and Church Fathers through 
paraphrases. Even better known are the satires that ^*^^' 
he wrote in Latin to reform the abuses and foibles of his 
times. His Adages and Praise of Folly mercilessly scored 
the absurdities and vices of the Church and the priest- 
hood, and in his Dialogue on Ciceronianism he ridiculed 
some of the narrower tendencies into which humanism 
had fallen. He also made direct contributions to educa- 
tional theory in his Latin treatises on The Liberal Educa- ^"^.^^2'°° 
Hon of Children, The Right Method of Study, and Courteous 
Manners in Boys, which are almost modern in some of 
their recommendations. Learning, morality, reHgion, 
and good manners, he held, must be trained together, 
and education must be open to everyone, according to 



^ 



114 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

his or her ability. It should be started in infancy by 
the mothers, and reading, writing, drawing, and some 
knowledge of familiar animals and objects taught by 
informal methods. At seven the boy is to be given a 
thorough training in the Scriptures, Church Fathers, 
and the classics, and the content rather than the language 
and form of these works is to be stressed. / 

The Development of Gymnasiums: Melanchthon's 
Work. — It can thus be seen what a profound effect the 
humanists trained in the Hieronymian schools had upon 
the Teutonic universities and other educational institu- 
tions. But there sprang up another set of schools, known 
as Gymnasien, that was an even more typical and lasting 

of old schools institutional development of the Northern Renaissance. 

municipalities. These ' gymnasiums ' grew largely out of the old cathedral 
and upper burgher schools, and were established for the 
benefit of the municipality, rather than for State and 
Church. Their development was gradual, but they were 
given their first definite shaping by Melanchthon (1497- 
1560). After a thorough humanistic training from his 
great-uncle, Reuchlin, and from the universities at 
Heidelberg and Tiibingen, that scholar had become 
associated with Luther at the University of Wittenberg, 
and was requested by the Elector of Saxony in 1528 to 

fo^ "Ekctorate Organize the schools in his state. The 'Latin Schools,' 

of Saxony. y^^j^jch j^g planned for every town and village of the 
electorate, were divided into three classes, and the work 
in Latin and religion was adapted to the grade. Not 
even Greek or Hebrew appeared in the course; much less 
the vernacular, mathematics, science, and history. 
Nevertheless, it was from these municipal Latin schools, 
when the course had been somewhat modified and ex- 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION II5 

panded, that the 'gymnasium' may be said to have 
sprung. 

Sturm at Strassburg. — A further step in fixing the 
type and the first use of the term ' gymnasium ' are found 
in the case of the classical school organized by Johann 
Sturm (1507-1589) at Strassburg in 1538. Here during 
his forty-five years as rector, Sturm worked out a gym- 
nasial course of ten classeS; upon which the pupils entered 
at six or seven years of age. The aim of this training he 
held to be 'piety^_knowledg£^..and eloquence,' meaning eJ^7'and°eTo' 
by the last an ability to speak and write Latin readily, quenceas 
For 'piety,' the Lutheran catechism was studied in 
German for three years, and in Latin for three years 
longer. The Sunday Sermons were read in the fourth and Course of the 

° -^ _ ten classes. 

fifth years, and the Letters of Jerome also in the fifth 
year, while the Epistles of St. Paul were carefully studied 
•from the sixth year through the rest of the course. On 
the ' knowledge ' and ' eloquence ' side, Latin grammar was 
begun immediately and the drill continued for four years, 
during which the pupil passed gradually from memoriz- 
ing lists of words used in everyday Ufe and reading di- 
alogues that embodied them to the translation of Cicero 
and the easier Latin poets. In the fourth year exercises 
in style were begun, and this was accompanied by a 
grammatical and Hterary study of Cicero, Vergil, Plautus, 
Terence, Martial, Horace, Sallust, and other authors, 
together with letter writing, declamation, disputation, 
and the acting of plays. Greek was begun in the fifth 
year, and after three years of grammatical training, 
Demosthenes, the dramatists, Homer, and Thucydides 
were undertaken. 
Formalism in the Gymnasiums.— This training, like 



ii6 



A student's history of education 



that of the Italian humanists, soon became set, formal, 
and mechanical. While other authors than Cicero were 
read, the object was to acquire an abiHty to read, write, 
and speak Ciceronian Latin, and words, phrases, and 
expressions were carefully committed. The main em- 
phasis throughout was upon form, with httle regard for 
content, and the Latin and Greek were largely regarded 
as an end in themselves. Yet the gymnasium of Sturm 
was an enormous success, and was soon crowded with 
students. His pupils became the headmasters of all the 
most prominent schools, and through his wide corre- 
spondence with sovereigns and educators, the course of 
study formulated by Sturm became a model not only for 
Germany, but, in a sense, for the rest of Europe. At any 
rate, most of the existing secondary schools in Germany, 
and many founded later, became gymnasiums. The 
majority of the Hieronymian schools soon adopted the 
gymnasial course. This was also the case with the 
Furstenschulen, or 'princes' schools,' a type of institution 
started in 1543 by Duke Moritz of Saxony to train well- 
prepared ofl&cials for Church and State at public expense, 
and afterward absorbed into the gymnasial system. And 
the gymnasiums have to-day changed but httle from 
Sturm's organization. Owing to the later influence of 
reahsm, the addition of mathematics, modern languages, 
and the natural sciences has somewhat mitigated the 
amount of classics prescribed, but otherwise the German 
gymnasiums adhere to their formal humanisni as tena- 
ciously as in the sixteenth century. 

The Humanistic Movement in England: Greek at 
Oxford and Cambridge. — In its northward march the 
humanistic education also effected profound changes in 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION I17 

England. By the middle of the fifteenth century many 
former students of Oxford began to study at various 
humanistic centers in Italy. But the influence of such 
innovators was scarcely felt until Grocyn and Linacre, Grocyn and 

•^ "^ Linacre. 

who had gone to Florence about 1488, undertook to 
introduce Greek into education upon their return home. 
Grocyn (1442-1519) became the first lecturer on Greek 
at Oxford, but he was greatly assisted in the humanistic 
training by Linacre (1460-15 24), although his lectureship 
was nominally on medicine. Among their pupils were 
'^Erasmus, More, and Colet. Humanistic education did not ^^^^^^j 
reach Cambridge, however, until the close of the fifteenth More, 
century, but, with the progress of the sixteenth, that 
university rapidly overtook her sister institution. The 
real development began when Erasmus, while a professor 
of theology at Cambridge (1510-1514), consented also 
to lecture upon Greek as a labor of love. Erasmus was 
succeeded by a number of lecturers, and in 1540 the new 
regius professorship was held for four years each by the 
great teachers, Cheke (1514-1557) and Ascham (iSiS^^sc^nf"** 
1568). 

Humanism at the Court. — As Cheke became private 
tutor to Prince Edward and Ascham to Princess Eliz- 
abeth, an Hellenic atmosphere was soon promoted in 
royal circles. A powerful assistance to the development 
of humanism was also found at the court through the 
influence of More, who was especially close to Cardinal ^oi^y°^ 
Wolsey, and so for a time to the king, Henry VIII. A 
number of treatises upon humanistic education were 
written by members of the court, like More and Vives; 
while Ascham produced his Scholemaster, a well-known schokmaster. 
work on teaching Latin and Greek by 'double transla- 



ii8 A student's history of education 

tion.' This famous method consisted in having the child 
translate a passage into English, and then, after an hour, 
render it back into the original and have the master 
compare it with the text. 

Colet and His School at St. Paul's. — The humanistic 
changes in English education, however, were not hmited 
to the universities and the court. The schools also felt 
the effect of the new movement, and the most important 
factor in bringing this about was the foundation of 
ing ?ombiiie'd St. Paul's School in 1509 by Colet. This scholar devoted 
dassics.^ most of the fortune left him by his father to establishing 

a humanistic school in St. Paul's churchyard, dedicated 
to 'the child Jesus.' The institution was thus an out- 
growth of Northern humanism, and combined rehgious 
training with a study of the classics. In connection with 
certain Latin authors and Church Fathers, the pupils 
studied the catechism in English, the Latin Grammar of 
Lily, who was the first headmaster of the school, and the 
De Copia of Erasmus. St. Paul's school trained a long 
list of brilliant scholars, Uterary men, clergy, and states- 
men, and became the immediate model for a host of other 
institutions. There were in existence at the time St. 
Influence upon Paul's was fouudcd some three hundred 'grammar 'schools 

other grammar ^ 

schools. of various types. These had come down from the Middle 

Ages, and their chief purpose had been the training of 
young men for the priesthood. Their curriculum was 
usually of the mediaeval monastic type, but they soon felt 
the influence of the new school. Those which survived 
the general dissolution of ecclesiastical foundations by 
Henry VIII and Edward VI were gradually remodeled on 
the classical basis of St. Paul's. New schools were also 
established in accordance with the humanistic ideals. 



~y^ THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION II9 

Humanism in the English 'Grammar' Schools. — But 

the humanism of the 'grammar' schools in England, as in 
Italy and Germany, soon became narrow and formal. 
The purpose of humanistic education came to be not so 
much a real training in hterature as a practical cormnand 
of Latin as a means of communication in all lands and 

. 1.1 .y . ' • 1 (•!•,• Soon became 

ages. Accordmgly, the trammg became one of diction- narrow and 
aries, granmiars, and phrase-books. Expressions and °'^™^' 
selections were culled from authors and treasured in note- 
books, and the methods became largely memoriter and 
passive. The formahsm into which the schools of Eng- 
land had thus fallen by the seventeenth century is 
depicted in Brinsley's Ludus literarius: or the Grammar 
Schoole, a work intended to ridicule and reform these con- 
ditions. It indicates that the training in Latin was de- 
voted to drill in inflecting, parsing, and construing a 
fixed set of texts. Lily's Grammar was memorized by 
the pupils, and references to it were glibly repeated, with 
httle understanding of their meaning. AH conversation 
was based upon some phrase-book, like the Colloquies of 
Corderius, and a Latin theme had to be ground out each 
week. 

English 'Grammar' and 'Public' Schools To-day. — 
Although reforms have since been made in many of 
these directions, the organization and the formal hu- 
manism of the English ' grammar ' school have been pre- 
served in principle even to this day. Mathematics, Largely un- 
modern languages, and sciences have been added, and 
a ' modern side ' has been established as an alternate for 
the old course, but the classics are still the emphasized 
feature, and, to a large degree, the drill methods prevail. 
But, while it was originally intended that the grammar 



I20 A student's history OF EDUCATION 

schools should, by means of the endowment, be open to 
rich and poor alike, because of the great increase in ex- 
penses, necessary and unnecessary, there are now not 
many opportunities for any one in the lower classes of 
society to attend a grammar school. Similarly, a dis- 
tinction has come to be drawn between 'grammar' and 
'public' schools, although it is not a very clear one. In 
'public' general, a 'public school' has a more aristocratic and 

schools. 

wealthier patronage. Nine 'great public schools' were 
recognized by the Clarendon Commission in 1864, — 
Winchester (Fig. 17), Eton, St. Paul's, Shrewsbury, 
Westminster, Rugby, Harrow, Merchant Taylors', and 
Charterhouse; but several other old schools and a number 
of the stronger foundations of Victoria's reign are gener- 
ally admitted, and many others claim the dignity of the 
name that would not be considered eligible outside of the 
immediate locality. 

The 'Grammar* Schools in the American Colonies. — 
It was after these 'grammar' schools of the mother coun- 
seconda?y"*^^° try that the first secondary schools in America were 
eied°aft«^°'^ modeled and named. In many instances the fathers of 
English. ^jjg colonies, such as Edward Hopkins, William Penn, and 

Roger Williams, had been educated in the grammar 
schools of England, and naturally sought to model the 
institutions in their new home after them as nearly as 
the different conditions would permit. The Boston 
Latin (Grammar) School was founded as early as 1635, 
(Fig. 23), and other towns of Massachusetts, — Charles- 
town, Ipswich, Salem, Dorchester, Newbury, Cambridge, 
and Roxbury, also before long established grammar 
_ schools. Similarly, towns of Connecticut, Rhode Island, 

y^H New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the other colo- 

? 




a. Drawing of Winchester College and its 
inmates by Warden Chandler of New 
College, Oxford, in 1460. The picture 
reveals the relationship of Winchester 
to the old monastic institutions, before 
it became humanistic. 










'i^4£2:^ 



t. 






















^j^- 







6. Eton College in 1688, from the drawing of David Loggan. 
Fig. 17. — Great English Public Schools. 



r 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION 121 

nies, had in many cases founded grammar schools before 
the close of the century. Moreover, the legislatures 
of Massachusetts (1647) and Connecticut (1650) soon 
ordered that a 'grammar' school be established in 
every town having one hundred families. The Ameri- 
can grammar schools, like their prototypes, were second- 
ary and sustained no real relation to the elementary 
schools. They were mostly intended to fit pupils for 
college, although sometimes the college had not yet 
been established, and thus to furnish a preliminary 
step to preparation for the Christian ministry. Hence 
their course consisted chiefly in reading the classics and 
the New Testament, and used among its texts Lily's 
Grammar and the Colloquies of Corderius. And while 
the hold of formal humanism upon secondary education 
was somewhat relaxed during the subsequent stages of 
the 'academy' and the 'high school,' the formal classical 
training was considered the only means of a hberal ed- 
ucation until well into the nineteenth century. 
> The Aim and Institutions of Humanistic Education. — 
It can now be seen how far the ideals of humanism had 
departed from those of the mediaeval period. The ' other- 
worldly' aim, the monastic isolation, and the scholastic 
discussions had given way to the interests of this life, i°.t«rMts of 

. ' this life. 

personal and social development, and a study of the 
classics. In the North the movement took on rather a 
different color from what it did in the peninsula that 
gave it birth. While Northern humanism was narrower 
in not concerning itself so much with self-culture, per- 
sonal expression, and the various opportunities of life, 
it had a wider vision through interesting itself in society 
as a whole and in endeavoring to advance moraHty and 



122 



A student's history of EDUCATIO."^ 



Organization, 



content. 



More social religion. It was democratic and social in its trend, where 

and moral in ° ...... 

the North, and Italian humanism was more aristocratic and individual. 

more individ- ■■.,., • i • • • i • 

uai in Italy. In Italy the chief educational institutions resulting 

from the humanistic movement were the schools that 
arose at the brilliant courts of the city tyrants. These 
institutions were sometimes connected with the uni- 
versities, and gradually the universities themselves were 
forced to admit the new learning to the curriculum. In 
the North a number of new institutions — Hieronymian 
schools, princes' schools, gymnasiums, and grammar 
schools — were developed from humanism, and the exist- 
ing institutions soon showed the influence of the move- 
ment, but all of them stressed moral and religious studies, 
as well as classical. Everywhere the curriculum of the 
humanistic foundations consisted mostly in the mastery 
of Latin and Greek, but in the North the renewal of 
Greek meant also a study of the New and Old Testa- 
ments and the Church Fathers. Where the ItaHan Re- 
naissance re-created the liberal education of Plato and 
Aristotle, Cicero and Quintilian, the movement in its 
Northern spread found in the classical revival a means 
of moral and religious training. But just as humanism 
in Italy by the beginning of the sixteenth century had 
degenerated into mere Ciceronianism, so the humanistic 
education in the North, after about a century of de- 
velopment, began to grow narrow, hard, and fixed. By 
the middle of the sixteenth century the spirit of criti- 
cism, investigation, and intellectual activity had begun 
to abate, and by the opening of the seventeenth human- 
ism had been completely formalized. In the study of the 
classics all emphasis was placed upon grammar, linguis- 
tics, and style; form was preferred to content; and 



methods. 



and effect. 



THE HUMANISTIC EDUCATION 1 23 

methods heca.m^'^moriler/'sLnd imitative. Humanism 
had largely performed its mission, and a new awakening 
was needed to revivify education and society in general.. 



<>d^' 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 



Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 19 10), chaps. XII- 
XIV; Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), chap. VI. An inter- 
esting interpretation of the Renaissance both in Italy and the 
North is found in Adams, G. B., Civilization during the Middle Ages 
(Scribner, 1894), chap. XV. An account of the movement, includ- 
ing its educational aspects in Italy, is found in Burckhardt, J., Civ- 
ilization of the Renaissance in Italy (Sonnenschein, London, 1892; 
Macmillan), vol. I, especially part III; Symonds, J. A., Renaissance 
in Italy (Holt, Scribner), vol. II, especially chaps. Ill- VIII; or 
Symonds' Short History of the Renaissance (Holt, 1894), especially 
chaps. I and VII, and IX-XI. Woodward, W. H., gives us a vivid 
account of the educational work of Vittorino da Feltre and Other 
Humanist Educators (Cambridge University Press, 1897), and of 
Erasmus concerning Education (Cambridge University Press, 1904), 
and of Education during the Renaissance (Cambridge University 
Press, 1906) as a whole. Peter Ramus and the Educational Reforma- 
tion of the Sixteenth Century (Macmillan, 1912), by Graves, F. P., 
furnishes some idea of conditions in France. The Italian Renais- 
sance in England (Columbia University Press, 1905), especially 
chap. I, is succinctly described by Einstein, L.; and an account of 
Colet and St. Paul's School can be found in Barnard, H., English 
Pedagogy, second series, pp. 49-117. 



CHAPTER XIII 

EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 

OUTLINE 

Luther's educational positions are most fully revealed in his 
well-known Letter and Sermon. He holds that education should 
prepare for citizenship, and should be state-supported, and these 
recommendations were somewhat embodied in actual schools by 
his associates. 

Zwingli was killed before he could greatly influence education, 
but the educational institutions of Calvin spread rapidly through 
Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Puritan England, and Scotland. 

In England Henry VHI and Edward VI confiscated the property 
of some three hundred monastic and other ecclesiastical schools, 
but subsequently many of these were refounded. 

The Jesuit colleges were organized to extend Catholic Chris- 
tianity. The lower colleges were humanistic, and the higher taught 
'philosophy' and theology. The teachers were trained, and the 
methods, though memoriter and emulative, were effective. The 
influence of the Jesuit colleges was phenomenal, but they have 
failed to meet new conditions. 

The Port Royalists held that reason was more important than 
memory, but, while their 'little schools' stressed vernacular, logic, 
and geometry, they offered nothing beyond the best elements in 
the education of the past. 

Elementary and industrial education was given an impulse for 
the Cathohcs by the schools of the Christian Brothers. They also 
opened training schools for teachers, and perfected the 'simulta- 
neous' method. 

Among the Protestants and some Catholics in Germany, Hol- 
land, Scotland, and certain of the American colonies, the Ref- 

124 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 1 25 

ormation inclined toward universal elementary education and 
control of the schools by the state. The secondary schools in 
Protestant countries also came largely under civic authorities, 
although the clergy still taught and inspected them ; while Catholic 
secondary education was furnished mostly by the Jesuit colleges. 
In many instances the universities turned Protestant; and new uni- 
versities, Protestant and Catholic, were founded. 

The Relation of the Reformation to the Renaissance. — 

The series of revolts from the Catholic Church, gen- 
erally known collectively as the 'Reformation,' may be 
regarded as closely connected with the Renaissance. 
As shown in the last chapter, humanism in the North 
led to a renewed study of the Scriptures and a reform of 
ecclesiastical doctrines and abuses, and took on a moral 
and religious color. Reformers arose, like Wimpfeling 
and Erasmus, who, while remaining within the Church, 
sought to purify it of corruption and obscurantism. But 
the Church at first stubbornly resisted all efforts at in- A series of re- 

•' volts from the 

ternal reform. Its immense wealth, large numbers, and Church ac- 

. . 1 1 T . r 1 • 1 1 companied 

trammg enabled it for a long time to thwart the Northern hu- 
spirit of the age, and a condition of ecclesiastical up- 
heaval followed. Revolts against papal authority en- 
sued in various parts of Europe north of Italy, and were 
furnished support by the awakened intellectual and 
social conditions of the sixteenth century. The result 
was the establishment of a church, or rather a set of 
churches, outside of Catholic Christianity. While each 
revolt had some pecuHarities of its own, there were under- 
lying them all certain general causes that indicated their 
relation to the Renaissance. 

The Revolt and Educational Works of Luther. — Even 
the attitude of Martin Luther (1483-1546) seems to have 



maoism. 



126 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



been bound up with the tendencies of the day. Appar- 
ently he had at first no idea of breaking from the Church, 
and supposed that the ninety-five theses he nailea - the 
church door at Wittenberg (15 17) were quite consistent 
with Cathohc allegiance. But even before this he had 
Luther relied attacked Aristotle and scholasticism with great vigor, 
dmduaifstic appcafing to primitive Christianity and the right of 
times °^ '^^ ^^^^ thought, and thus identified himself in spirit with 
the Northern Renaissance. And two years later, in his 
contest with Eck, when he was actually led to deny the 
authority of both pope and council, he was evidently 
relying upon the humanistic and individualistic atmos- 
phere of the times. 

When once he had revolted, Luther gave much of his 
time to promoting the reform and education of the 
masses by writing. All his works, whether religious or 
pedagogical, were clearly intended, in a broad sense, to 
be educational. After his condemnation at the Diet of 
S'th^^fifwe'"'^ Worms (1521), when he had taken refuge at the Wart- 
burg, he undertook to awaken the minds and hearts of 
the common people by a translation of the Greek Testa- 
ment. Contrary to general opinion, a large number of 
translations had preceded that of Luther, and their 
popularity must have proved suggestive to him, but his 
edition was unusually close to the colloquial language 
of the times. A dozen years later, he had completed a 
translation of the entire Bible, which contributed greatly 
to education by getting the masses to read and reflect. 
For the further instruction of the people, he also followed 
the fashion of the day in producing two catechisms, one 
for adults and the other for children, together with 
many tracts, addresses, and letters, filled with allusions 



and his 
catechisms 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 1 27 

to the organization and methods of education. But the 
documents which most fully reveal his educational 
positions are his Letter to the Mayors and Aldermen of All slrm^n!"' ^""^ 
Cities of Germany in behalf of Christian Schools (1524), 
and his Sermon on the Duty of Sending Children to School 

(1530)- 

Luther's Ideas on Education. — The purpose of educa- 
tion, Luther everywhere holds, involves the promotion 
of the State's welfare quite as much as that of the Church. 
The schools were to make good citizens as well as reh- Civicaim. 
gious men. Educational institutions should, on that 
account, be maintained at pubHc expense for every 
one, — rich and poor, high and low, boys and girls, alike, 
and attendance should be compelled by the civic au- 
thorities. Realizing that some pupils may find it hard icfSk ^'"'^ 
to give the time to school, Luther planned that "they training, 
should spend an hour or two a day in school, and the 
rest of the time in work at home, learn some trade and 
do whatever is desired, so that study and work may go 
on together." But he also desired a more academic 
course "for the brightest pupils, who give promise of 
becoming accomplished teachers, preachers, and work- 
ers." In any case, Luther naturally believed that the 
chief studies should be the Bible and the catechism. 
But, as a Northern humanist, he recommended the an- 
cient languages — Latin, Greek, and Hebrew — for the 
light they would throw on the Scriptures and the pa- 
tristic writers. He likewise approved of rhetoric and JjjJtJnt.^ 
dialectic, which were very valuable subjects in those 
days of controversy; and he made a decided advance 
in advocating history, natural science, vocal and instru- 
mental music, and gymnastic exercises. History is ad- 



128 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Rational 
methods. 



vised, not only, as was common with the humanists, 
for the sake of illustrating moral truth, but also for the 
purpose of understanding social institutions. The study 
of nature was intended to reveal "the wonders of Divine 
Goodness and the omnipotence of God." Gymnastics 
he considered of value both for the body and the soul, 
and music a means of "driving away all care and melan- 
choly from the heart." The methods here commended 
were equally rational. He would utilize the natural ac- 
tivity of children and not attempt to repress them, and 
would make use of concrete examples, wherever possible. 
Languages he would teach less by grammar than by 
practice. This belief in the importance of selecting the 
proper content and method in education led him to rate 
the function of the teacher as higher, if anything, than 
that of the preacher. 

The Embodiment of Luther's Ideas in Schools by His 
Associates. — These recommendations of Luther were 
largely embodied in actual institutions by his associates. 
The year after his Letter to the Mayors was pubhshed, 
the Protestants were requested by the Count of Mans- 
feld to establish in Luther's native town, Eisleben, a 
school that should put his educational theories into prac- 
tice, and this was performed by Melanchthon. The sub- 
sequent organization of Latin schools throughout the 
Electorate of Saxony, and the foundation of the g3an- 
nasium of Sturm at Strassburg upon the Protestant basis 
have already been touched upon (pp. 114 ff.). But 
of fully as much importance were the educational founda- 
Bugenhagen in tions of Bugenhagen (1485-1558). While engaged in 

Northern . . i i i . i • • i r 

Germany. reorganizmg the churches m the cities and states of 
Northern Germany, by his general 'church orders' to 



Melanchthon 
and Sturm. 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 1 29 

each, he made ample provision for schools of the Lutheran 
type. For instance, at Hamburg in 1520 he organized a 
single Latin school with a rector and seven teachers, 
together with a German school for boys and one for girls 
in every parish. Eight years afterward, the 'church 
orders' of Brunswick provided two classical schools, two 
vernacular schools for boys, and four for girls, so located 
in the city that all children could conveniently reach a 
school. Within a half dozen years he made similar re- 
quirements for Liibeck, Minden, Gottingen, Soest, 
Bremen, Osnabriick, and other cities, and throughout 
some entire states of Germany, such as Holstein and his 
own native duchy of Pomerania. The educational other 

assoaat 

theories of Luther were also put into practice in a num- 
ber of schools taught by Trotzendorf , Neander, and other 
pupils of Melanchthon. 

The Revolt and Educational Ideas of Zwingli. — The 
revolt under Zwingli (1484-1531) was more directly the 
outcome of Northern humanism than was that of Luther. Nort^m^S- 
Through Erasmus and others he had come to beHeve nanism, 
that there was little basis in the Bible for the traditional 
theology, and he carefully read the accounts himself in 
the original Greek and Hebrew. After he took charge 
of the cathedral at Zurich, he began his attack upon the 
dogmas and traditions of the Church, and, by securing 
the support of the town, managed in a fairly peaceful 
way to drop one form of the Church after another, until, 
within five years, he had abolished even the mass. 
Zwingli likewise made the extension of educational 
facilities a part of his reform. He founded a number of 
humanistic institutions, and introduced elementary 
schools into Switzerland. He also published a Brief Trea- 



Schools and 
course sirr 
to Luther's 



130 A student's history of education 

tise on the Christian Education of Youth (1523), which 
recommended a course of studies not unlike that of 
course simfiar Luther, cxccpt that, from his practical temperament, he 
did not mention history, but did add arithmetic and sur- 
veying. 

Calvin's Revolt and His Encouragement of Educa- 
tion. — While endeavoring to spread his reforms, Zwingli 
was slain in the prime of life. His positions were main- 
tained by his successor in the cathedral, but the work 
was soon overshadowed and merged in the movement of 
Calvin (i 509-1 564). Calvin's break with the Church, 
like that of French Protestants generally, also began 
through North- through the influence of Northern humanism and the 
umanism. gj^^^jy ^f |-]^g Greek Testament. He had, however, re- 
ceived an excellent legal and theological education, and 
did not content himself with merely attacking Catholic 
doctrine, but was the first Protestant to formulate an 
elaborate system of theology. The call of Calvin to 
reorganize the civil and religious administration of the 
city of Geneva gave him an excellent opportunity for 
working out his theories. Although he was much en- 
leges grossed in religious disputes, he established 'colleges' at 
Geneva and elsewhere, and in other ways undertook to 
found schools and promote education. He succeeded, 
too, in persuading his former teacher, Corderius (see 
p. Ill), to come to Switzerland, and organize, adminis- 
ter, and teach in the reformed colleges. 

The Colleges of Calvin. — Corderius here wrote four 
books of Colloquies, with the purpose of training boys 
by means of conversation on timely topics to speak 
Latin with facility, and from this work we can learn 
much of the character of the Calvinistic colleges. Clearly 



and Corderius. 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 131 

the ideal was the 'learned piety' of Melanchthon, Stunn, Aim, content, 

and organiza- 

and the other Northern humanists and Protestants. An tion. 
attempt seems to have been made to teach Latin in such ■/■ 
a way as to cultivate a moral and religious life, and 
psalms were sung, public prayers offered, and selections 
from the Bible repeated each day. We also know that 
in the seven classes of a college at Geneva the pupils 
learned reading and grammar from the Latin catechism, 
and then studied Vergil, Cicero, Ovid, Caesar, Livy, and 
Latin composition. Greek seems to have been begun 
in the fourth year, and, beside classical Greek authors, 
the Gospels and Epistles were read. Likewise, as in the 
other Reformation schools, logic and rhetoric were stud- 
ied in the higher classes. The colleges of this type not 
only spread rapidly among Calvin's co-religionists in Spread in 
Switzerland and France, but, as Geneva became a city France, 
of refuge for all the oppressed, a regard for humanistic, England, and 
religious, and universal education was absorbed by the ^°^^^ ' 
persecuted Netherlanders, the Enghsh Protestants of 
Mary's time, and the Scotch under the leadership of 
Knox in the days of Mary, Queen of Scots (1505-1572). 

Henry VIII's Revolt and Its Effect upon Education. — 
In England a revolt from the Church likewise occurred. 
This also may have been due in part to the investigative Due to per- 

, '^ . , sonal reasons. 

spirit of Northern humanism, but the immediate cause 
of the breach was the desire of Henry VIII {r. 1 509-1 547) 
to control the national Church, that he might divorce his 
wife, and there was at first little change in doctrine. 
Once in ecclesiastical power, Henry began in 1536 to 
confiscate the monastic lands and property, and en- 
larged the scope of his operations until he had suppressed 
a large number of monastic, cathedral, collegiate, hos- 



132 A student's history of education 

pital, and other schools. During the reign (i 547-1 553) 
Suppression of of his successor, Edward VI, the acts of suppression 

grammar -"^^ 

schools. were extended to chantry and gild foundations, and it 

is estimated that, of the three hundred grammar schools 
that had come down in England from the Middle Ages, 
but few were not destroyed under Henry and Edward. 
Some, however, remained by the terms of the parHamen- 
tary acts of suppression, and popular sentiment caused 
others to be refounded. And during the reign of Eliza- 
beth (1558-1603) and of the first two Stuart kings (1603- 
1649) these foundations were greatly increased out of 
royal funds or through the philanthropy of wealthy men. 
All of these schools, as we have seen (p. 118), following 
the example of St. Paul's, adopted the Northern ideals 
of humanism and furnished a curriculum of classics and 
religious training. The latter became based, of course, 
upon the teachings of the Church of England. 

Foundation of the Society of Jesus. — We may now 
turn back to the Mother Church and see what efforts 
she was putting forth in behalf of education during the 
period of Protestant revolts. Both before and after 
the time of Luther there were reformers inside the Church 
who wished to improve its practices without changing 
its administration, but the Cathohcs in general felt 
it their chief duty to crush the Protestant heresy and 
recover the ground they had lost. This resulted in a 
number of rehgious wars, in which both sides displayed 
great bitterness and cruelty. But a more effective and 
constructive instrument in advancing the interests of 
Catholicism was the organization of the 'Society of 
strengthen the Jcsus.' This Order was founded by Ignatius de Loyola 
tbe^pe^ ° (1491-1556) in 1534. He persuaded six fellow-students ' 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 133 

at Paris to join with him in devoting themselves to the 
conversion of the heathen, and to strengthening the 
authority of the pope. Six years later, after considerable 
opposition, the new order was recognized by the pope 
and began to add rapidly to its numbers. The Jesuits 
have always striven first through missionary labors to ex- 
tend CathoKc Christianity throughout the world, and 
then by means of schools to hold their converts and edu- 
cate all peoples to papal allegiance. 

Organization of the Jesuits. — The organization of the 
Society of Jesus was outlined in its Constitution. This 
fundamental document of the order received its final 
revision shortly after Loyola's death, but the Ratio 
Studiorum, which was an expansion of Part IV of the "^be Constitu- 

^ , (ton and the 

Constitution and described the educational administra- ■R.^'w stu- 
tion in detail, was not finally formulated until 1599. 
It thus summed up the experience of the Jesuit schools 
during more than sixty years. The administration 
of the society has always been of a miUtary type. Loyola 
had originally started upon the career of a soldier, and 
did not beheve that any system could be effective unless 
it were based upon implicit obedience to one's official 
superiors. At the head of the order is the 'general,' "^^^ 'general,' 
who is elected for life and has vast administrative powers. 
As the society spread, the countries that came under its 
control were divided into provinces, and at the head of 
the Jesuit interests in each of these districts is the 'pro- 'provincial,' 
vincial,' who is appointed by the general for three years. 
In each province there are various colleges, whose pre- 
siding officer, or 'rector,' is chosen for three years by lector,' and 

. . "^ •' other offiaals. 

the general, but is directly responsible to the provincial 
and reports to him. Similarly, within each college are 



134 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



The lower 
colleges are 
secondary and 
humanistic, 



with curricu- 
lum largely 
unchanged. 



The upper col- 
leges furnish 
training in 
' philosophy ' 
and theology. 



'prefects/ immediately subordinate to the rector, but se- 
lected by the provincial; and under the inspection of 
the prefects are the 'professors' or 'preceptors.' 

The Jesuit Colleges. — The Jesuits have never engaged 
in elementary education, but have required that pupils 
know how to read and write before being admitted to 
any of their schools. This may have been brought about 
in the first place by the fact that the number of their 
teachers was limited, or that the public elementary school 
was just coming to be regarded as of importance, and sec- 
ondary education of the humanistic type was everywhere 
dominant. The Jesuit educational organization has, 
therefore, consisted of 'lower colleges' with a gymnasial 
course, and of 'upper colleges,' which are of university 
grade. Boys are admitted to the lower colleges at from 
ten to fourteen years of age, and spend five or six years 
there. The first three classes were at first devoted to a 
careful study of Latin grammar, and a little of Greek; 
in the fourth year a number of the Greek and Latin poets 
and historians were read; while the last class, to which 
two years were usually given, took up a rhetorical study 
of the classical authors. Only slight variations in the 
curriculum have ever been allowed since the Ratio 
Studiorum was issued, until the revision in 1832. In 
that year work in mathematics, natural science, history, 
and geography was added in the lower colleges, but the 
classics still compose the body of the course. 

The full course of the upper colleges lasts seven or 
nine years, — the first three in 'philosophy,' followed by 
four or sLx in theology. The training in 'philosophy' 
now includes not only logic, metaphysics, psychology, 
ethics, and natural theology, but also work in algebra, 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 135 

geometry, trigonometry, analytics, calculus, and me- 
chanics, and such natural sciences as physics, chemistry, 
geology, astronomy, and physiology. A successful com- 
pletion of the course leads to the degree of Master of 
Arts. After the course in philosophy, most of the Jesuits 
teach in the lower colleges five or six years before going 
on with the work in theology. In the theological course 
four years are devoted to a study of the Scriptures, He- 
brew, and other Oriental languages, together with Church 
history, canon law, and various branches of theology. 
After this one may elect a further training of two years, 
to review the work in philosophy and theology, and to 
prepare a thesis. After a pubHc examination and de- 
fense of his thesis, the successful candidate is awarded 
the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Hence a complete 
Jesuit training will take from eighteen to twenty years, 
and a member of the order may be from thirty to thirty- 
five years of age before completing his formal education. 
The Jesuit Methods of Teaching. — The methods of 
teaching and the splendid qualification of the instruct- 
ors were from the first distinctive features in the Jesuit 
colleges, especially when one considers how little atten- 
tion up to their time had been given to the preparation teachers, 
of teachers. No one could teach in the lower colleges 
who had not passed through the course in philosophy, 
while professors in the universities had first to complete 
the theological course. Instruction was generally im- 
parted orally, and then memorized or taken down in 
lecture notes. The method was the 'prelection,' which ^^q'.^'^^"^' 
meant a preliminary explanation of the passage or lec- 
tures upon the topic under consideration by the teacher. 
It consisted in giving, first, the general meaning of the 



136 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



memonzing, 



reviews. 



whole passage or proposition; then, a more detailed ex- 
planation of the construction or phraseology; next, 
similar thoughts in other authors; fourthly, 'erudition', 
or informational comment upon the passage; then, a 
study of the rhetorical figures; and finally, the moral 
lesson to be drawn. Obviously, with such a method, 
great stress would be placed upon memorizing, espe- 
cially in the lower colleges. To fix subjects firmly in 
mind, s^ort hours, few studies, and brief lessons were 
early found to Be necessary. Likewise, reviews have 
always been frequent and systematic, and the Latin 
motto of the Jesuit method declares that "repetition 
is the mother of learning." Each day begins with a re- 
view of the preceding day's work, and closes with a 
review of the work just accomplished. Each week ends 
with a repetition of all that has been covered in that 
time, and the last month of every year reviews the course 
of the year. To maintain interest in the midst of so 
much memorizing and reviewing, many devices to pro- 
mote emulation are used. The pupils are arranged in 
pairs as 'rivals,' whose business it is to check on the 
conduct and studies of each other (Fig. 18); and public 
'disputations' between two sides are engaged in each 
week. 

Value and Influence of the Jesuit Education. — The 
Jesuit system, then, seems to have been in advance of 
that in the schools at the time of its foundation. It was 
organized upon a systematic and thorough basis, and 
was administered by a set of splendidly trained teachers 
through the best methods that were known in that day. 
interesting. and The schools Were interesting and pleasant, and were free 
to all who had the ability and desire to attend. The 



and rivalry. 



Systematic, 





a. Jesuit College at Kegensburg in lOoo. 













X X X X 


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i i f i 


O 


o 




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1 




o 


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o 






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6. Plan of a Jesuit schoolroom of the seventeenth century. B rep- 
resents the teacher, C the monitors, and D, E, O, X, and I va- 
rious student officials. The numbered lines represent rows of 
students, known as decuriae. When a student was called upon, 
his 'rival' arose from the corresponding place in the other 
group; and as each recited, the other endeavored to correct him 
in some error. 

Fig. i8. — Education of the Jesuits. 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION I37 

Jesuit teachers, too, were indefatigable and devoted to 
their duty. The criticism that has been offered to this 
educational system is based on its insistence upon abso- 
lute authority and the consequent opposition to the but authorita- 

. . tive and uni- 

development of individuality. The Jesuit courses, form, 
subjects, and methods have become somewhat uniform 
and fixed. In the lower colleges they depend largely 
upon memory and appeal to interest through a system of 
rivalry, honors, and rewards. Such a system is likely to 
tend toward a reproductive attitude in the pupil. 

Nevertheless, the Jesuits furnished the most effective 
education during the latter half of the sixteenth, the 
entire seventeenth, and the early part of the eighteenth 
centuries. The growth of their schools was phenomenal. ^ro^^°"o?fij 
By the death of Loyola (1556) there were already one number of 
hundred colleges, and a century and a half later they students, 
had increased to seven hundred and sixty-nine institu- 
tions, spread throughout the world. The average number • 
of students in attendance at any of these colleges during 
the seventeenth century was about three hundred, and in 
several of the larger centers there were between one and 
two thousand, and the famous College of Clermont 
(now Lycee Louis le Grand) at Paris is said to have run 
up to three thousand. At a modest estimate, there 
must have been some two hundred thousand students 
in the Jesuit colleges when they were at their height. 
Their graduates seem to have become prominent in every grTduaTel 
important activity of Hfe, and included a large number of 
the noted authors, prelates, statesmen, and generals of 
the time. By the middle of the eighteenth century, 
however, the ideals and content of education had some- 
what changed, and the Jesuits did not adapt their course 



138 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Quarrels and 
banishments. 



Adopted ra- 
tionalistic 
phDosophy. 



to the new conditions. Moreover, the Jesuits seem to 
have become powerful, ambitious, and somewhat arro- 
gant. They quarreled frequently with bishops, other 
monastic orders, governments, and universities. Finally, 
after they had been banished from France, Spain, and 
Portugal, in 1773 the pope himself dissolved the Society 
of Jesus. Forty years later the order was restored, but, 
owing to the development of educational ideals and 
organization and the increase of educational institutions, 
their work has never since become relatively as effective 
or held as important a place in education. ^>^ 

The Organization of the Education of the Port Royal- 
ists. — A type of Catholic education radically opposed 
to that of the Jesuits was created by a group of men 
belonging to the religious body known as the Jansenists. 
The doctrines of the Jansenists were formulated in 1621 
by Cornelius Jansen, a professor in the University of 
Louvain. While striving to retain their place within the 
Church, the Jansenists opposed the prevailing doctrines 
of confession and penance, and adopted the rationahstic 
philosophy of Descartes. They also held that humanity 
is naturally corrupt, except as it is watched and guided, 
and that only a relatively few can be saved. These doc- 
trines probably influenced a body of Jansenists that 
estabHshed a new departure in the way of education at 
the convent of Port Royal at Chevreuse. In 1643 the 
'Port Royalists' endeavored to remove what few chil- 
dren they could from the temptations of the world to a 
school started in this convent. Similar institutions 
quickly sprang up in the vicinity and then spread through 
Paris. To carry out their ideal of careful oversight, 
these schools usually took only twenty to twenty-five 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 139 

pupils, and each master had under him five or six boys, 
whom he never allowed out of his immediate supervision 
day or night. Hence these institutions were known as 'Little' 
'little schools.' 

The Port Royal Course and Method of Teaching. — 
Since the Port Royalists held that character was of more 
importance than knowledge, and reason was to be 
developed rather than memory, these 'little schools' Reason rather 

^ ■^ ' than memory. 

sought to impart an education that should be sound and 
lasting, rather than brilHant. Unlike the Jesuits, they 
did not start their pupils with Latin, but with the ver- 
nacular, since this was within their comprehension. As 
soon as they possessed a feeling for good literature, they 
began the study of Latin through a minimum grammar 
written in French, and soon took up the Latin authors, Latin through 

, . 1 ^ 1 1 • ^^^ vernacular. 

rendenng them mto the vernacular. Greek hterature 
was treated in similar fashion. To train the reason, the 
older pupils were also taught logic and geometry. The ^o^ and 
course of study, however, was mostly Hterary, and had 
no regard for science or investigation. Port Royal pre- 
sented the best elements of the education of the past, 
but did not see beyond it. The methods introduced some 
striking innovations. The leaders in the Port Royal 
education departed from the alphabetic plan in teaching 
their pupils to read, and developed a phonetic method. ^e°^od*^ 
The Port RoyaKsts also refused to permit the use of 
emulation and prizes in their schools, but their exclusion i^^^ere 
of rivalry resulted in indifference. They were never able 
to secure the energy, earnestness, and pleasing environ- 
ment of the Jesuit colleges. They did, however, succeed 
in inculcating a general spirit of piety without the formal 
teaching of doctrine. 




I40 A student's history of education 

Closing of the Port Royalist Schools and Its Effects. — 

Jesuits los^^ In 1 66 1 the Port Royalist schools were closed by the 
order of Louis XIV through the influence of the Jesuits. 
But this act cost the Jesuits dearly. Not only did it 
lose them sympathy, but it furnished the Port Royalists 
occasion to issue tracts against Jesuitism that have 
injured its repute ever since. This closing of their schools 
also gave the Port Royalists the opportunity of becoming 
educators in a larger sense by producing a great variety 
produced edu- of Writings upon their system. Later on, too, RolHn 
^wna rea- (1661-1741), who was twicc clcctcd rector of the Univer- 
sity of Paris, summarized in his Treatise on Studies the 
Port Royalist reforms wrought in that institution. 

La Salle and the Schools of the Christian Brothers. — 
The Port RoyaHsts were, however, like the Jesuits, en- 
grossed with secondary and higher education, and gave 
httle heed to the education of all the people in the rudi- 
ments. In fact, until toward the close of the seventeenth 
century, the Catholics generally did not succeed in 
inaugurating any effective or widespread movement 
ta^'^^duc^fon ^oward elementary education. Numerous attempts 
before La SaUe. before this were made through catechism schools and 
various reformers and religious orders, but teachers were 
scarce and often ignorant and poorly trained, and there 
was Uttle progress before the organization of the Brothers 
of the Christian Schools through the self-sacrificing 
efforts of Jean Baptiste de la Salle (1651-1719). The 
organization sprang out of a group of five masters en- 
gaged in teaching schools for the poor in the city of 
of7heTcho"i I^heims in 1679, but it was not until three years later 
atRheims, that La Salle completed his regulations, founded the 
brotherhood, and moved the members into a permanent 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION I4I 

home. The order flourished, and neighboring towns soon 
endeavored to secure its members as teachers in their 
schools for the poor. Within a year or two, four schools 
in and about Rheims were placed under masters trained 
in the house of the Christian Brothers, and a number of 
other institutions were soon organized in the vicinity 
upon the same basis. 

But, being unable to supply the constant demands for 
his teachers that came from districts outside the towns, 
La Salle undertook to train boys who were sent him by 
the rural clergy, and were expected to return to their 
homes to teach after their training. To accomplish this, 
he established in 1684 a 'seminary for schoolmasters' 
in a wing of the house of the brotherhood, and two other 
seminaries were opened in neighboring towns the follow- 
ing year. Four years later La Salle opened a house for 
the brotherhood near Paris, and the Christian Brothers ^^"^ 
were speedily requested to take charge of the schools of 
several parishes. Despite the jealousy and opposition 
of the established order of schoolmasters and of many 
parties in Church and State, the schools and seminaries 
of the Brothers greatly increased in Paris, and were 
rapidly extended throughout France. At Paris also La 
Salle started the 'Christian academy,' in which drawing, 
geometry, and architecture were taught ambitious poor 
boys on Sunday, and introduced boarding colleges for 
higher secondary training. And these institutions like- 
wise spread through France and the rest of Europe. 

._,. . T- ^ ^ ,, . , , , and Saint Yon. 

(J:'ig. 19). In 1705 La balle retired to the estate known 
as Saint Yon, near Rouen, and there opened a home for 
the brotherhood. Here he also founded a famous board- 
ing-school in which he trained boys for soldiery, farm- 



142 A student's history of education 

ing, trade, and various other vocations. Before long he 
likewise organized in conjunction an industrial training 
for youthful delinquents, and both the vocational school 
and the ' protectory ' soon became models for many simi- 
lar institutions in France and elsewhere. 

The Aim, Curriculum, and Method of the Christian 
Brothers' Schools. — The plan of the schools of the Chris- 
tian Brothers was eventually worked out and crystallized 
in a fixed system under the title of Conduct of Schools. 
This code has not remained quite as definite and uniform 
as the Ratio Studiorum of the Jesuits, for changes and 
revisions are permitted, and modern methods and sub- 
jects have from time to time been introduced. Con- 
siderable latitude, moreover, has been allowed to the 
individual houses by the Superior General at the head of 
the order, and by the Brothers Visitors, who have charge 
of the districts. The educational aim of the Christian 

Religious aim. Brothers has been preeminently religious, and the chief 
means of attaining this have been strict vigilance, good 
example, and catechetical instruction. The course has 
included the studies of the best schools of the time, and 

Besides rudi- added Other more practical subjects. Besides the 

ments and re- _ ... . . 

ligion, more rudimcuts — reading, writing, and arithmetic — and reli- 

practical sub- . • , ,• j j .i .. 

jects. gious mstruction and good manners, mathematics, 

history, botany, geography, drawing, architecture, hy- 
drography, navigation, and other technical subjects have 
often been taught, and in the industrial schools a manual 
and vocational training has been furnished. La Salle 
seems to have made a great advance, too, in educational 

'Simultaneous' economy by perfecting and appl>ing the 'simultaneous' 
method, which had been practiced in a crude form by 
some of his forerunners. By this method is meant grad- 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 143 

ing the children according to their capacity, and having 
those in each grade use the same book and follow the 
same lesson under a single master, instead of instructing 
each pupil individually, as was generally the custom 
then. Likewise, the seminaries or training schools of 
the Christian Brothers contributed much to the advance- 
ment of efficiency in teaching. For the first time teachers Training of 

•'^ _ ° _ teachers. 

of ability and training were made possible for the elemen- , 
tary schools. 

Influence of the Schools of the Christian Brothers. — 
The work of the Christian Brothers has met with steady 
growth and development. By the time of La Salle's 
death (17 19), there had come to be twenty-seven houses Spread 
of the order, with two hundred and seventy-four brothers, 
educating about nine thousand pupils. Before the close 
of the century these numbers had about quadrupled, and 
now they have increased nearly a hundredfold since the 
founder's day. During the nineteenth century these 
institutions were established in all the states of Europe, 
Asia, Northern Africa, and America. The educational 
system has been much modified and expanded, and now 
includes colleges, technical and industrial schools, acad- 
emies and high schools, elementary and grammar schools, ^°^, expansion 
commercial schools, asylums, and protectories. Thus 
La Salle and his schools of the Christian Brothers have 
performed a great service for education in all lines, 
but especially in the promotion and enrichment of 
elementary training, which had previously been so 
neglected. 

Aim and Content of Education in the Reformation. — 
It can now be seen that, as a result of the Reformation, „ ,. . 

Religious and 

the religious and theological aim of education at all theological. 



144 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Cooperation 
with civil 
officials. 



Germany, 



stages became very prominent with Catholics and 
Protestants alike. In the elementary schools, beside the 
rudiments, the Scriptures, the Lord's prayer, the ten 
commandments, and the Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, 
or Anglican creed and catechism were taught, and, with 
the Protestants, also the hymns of the church. The 
courses in the secondary schools and universities con- 
tained large religious elements, as well as the formal 
•humanism into which the Renaissance of the North had 
degenerated. Likewise, there was furnished in all 
universities a training in dialectic, rhetoric, and theology 
for the sake of eflficient controversy with ecclesiastical 
opponents. 

Effect of the Reformation upon Elementary Schools.^ 
But while the Catholics were inclined to leave the or- 
ganization of education in the hands of various religious 
bodies, the Protestants more often thought it wise to 
have its support and control administered by the princes 
and the state. Owing to this secular management and 
their position on universal education, the Protestants, 
with the exception of the AngHcans, who had altered 
but little in doctrine, were inclined to establish state 
school systems and hold to the duty of providing and 
requiring elementary education at public expense. In 
this way the germs of the modern tendency toward uni- 
versal, free, and compulsory education began to appear, 
although they did not ripen until much later. 

In the German states there were many illustrations 
of the spread of elementary education and civic control. 
As an immediate result of Luther's Letter to the Mayors 
in 1524, the city of Magdeburg united its parish schools 
under one management and adopted the Protestant 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 145 

ideals. So, in 1525, the school at Eisleben, organized 
upon a Protestant basis (see p. 128), included elemen- 
tary as well as secondary work. Similar ideals and or- 
ganization appear in the provision for ' German ' schools 
in the 'Church orders' sent out by Bugenhagen (see 
pp. 128 f.) to the Protestant cities and states of Northern 
Germany. A further step was taken in 1528 when 
Melanchthon drew up a plan for schools throughout the 
entire Electorate of Saxony. This, the first state school 
system in history, was followed by one in Wiirtemberg, 
where in 1559 Duke Christopher adopted an improve- 
ment upon the Saxon plan, which called for a rehgious 
and elementary training for the children of the common 
people in every village of the duchy. Brunswick in 
1569, and Saxony in 1580, followed the lead of Wiirtem- 
berg in revising their school systems. Before the middle 
of the next century, a number of other spates of Germany, 
such as Weimar, Hessen-Darmstadt, Mecklenburg, 
Holstein, Hessen-Cassel, and Gotha modeled elemen- 
tary school systems after those of Saxony and Wiirtem- 
berg. While the Catholics did not in general maintain 
public elementary education, the Christian Brothers and 
others undertook a great work in this direction, and 
Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria even ordered throughout 
his state the establishment of 'German' schools with 
instruction in reading, writing, and the Catholic creed. 
This organization of universal education continued its 
advance, despite the decimation and the general havoc 
upon finance and education wrought by the Thirty 
Years' War (1618-1648), and by the end of the eighteenth 
century practically every village throughout the German 
states had its Volksschule or 'people's school.' These 



146 A student's history of education 

institutions were under the direction of the pastor of 
each parish, and while actual conditions may often have 
been somewhat below the statutory level and in many 
cases were a wretched apology, every child not studying 
at a secondary school was in theory obliged, between the 
ages of six and thirteen, to attend one of these schools 
of the people (Fig. 20). 

As a result of the Dutch Reformed movement, Hol- 
land also made early provision for instruction in rehgion, 
reading, and writing. The Church at various synods, 
and civic authorities in many statutes, recognized the 
need of universal training, and finally the great Synod 
of Dort, by a combination with the civil government, 
in 16 1 8 required every parish to furnish elementary 
education for all. Similarly, through Knox, Scotland 
established elementary schools under the control of the 
parishes. Preliminary steps in this direction were taken 
by the Privy Council and the Scotch Parhament early 
in the seventeenth century, and in 1646 the parliament 
further enacted that there be "a Schoole founded, and 
a Schoole master appointed in every Parish," and pro- 
vided that if a parish should fail in this duty, the pres- 
bytery should have power to establish the school and 
compel the parish to maintain it. Half a century later 
this school system was given over more fully to the con- 
trol of the State, but even then much of the old connec- 
tion with the Church was apparent. These schools gave 
instruction in reading, writing, and religion, with the 
Bible as text, and have done a wonderful work in raising 
the level of intelligence and affording an opportunity to 
the children of the lower classes in Scotland. England 
herself continued to hold to aristocratic and 'selective' 




Fig. iQ. — A school of the Christian Brothers. (Visit 
of James II and the Archbishop of Paris to the 
school at Rouen.) 




Fig. 20. — A Protestant school in a German village of the 
sixteenth century. (Visit of the school committee and 
catechising by the pastor.) 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION 147 

education, and gave little heed to the establishment of 
elementary schools; but the American colonies, as far andtheAmeri- 

•' _ _ can colonies. 

as they were founded by Calvinists or Lutherans, pro- 
vided early for elementary education (see p. 189). The 
Puritan towns of the Massachusetts colony established 
schools almost as soon as they were settled, and in 1647 
the legislature enacted that all towns with fifty families 
should provide an elementary school. Connecticut fol- 
lowed the example three years later, and before the close 
of the century, similar action was taken by New Hamp- 
shire and Vermont (see pp. 197 and 199). Likewise, 
New Amsterdam and the villages of New Netherlands fol- 
lowed the example of the Mother Country and provided 
pubHc schools in connection with each church through 
the support of the Dutch West India Company or of the 
civil and ecclesiastical bodies jointly (see pp. 193 f). 

Effect of the Reformation upon the Secondary Schools. 
— While the development of elementary instruction and 
state systems of education was the most important educa- 
tional outcome of the Reformation, the movement had 
a somewhat similar effect upon the humanistic secondary 
education of the time. In Protestant Germany the 
Latin schools and gymnasia came under the control of among ^°Prot- 
the princes and the State rather than the Church, and ^^^^' 
gradually became the backbone of the state school sys- 
tems. But they stressed the religious element in their 
curriculum, and the direct management of education though direct 

, , -r, . . management 

was sunply transferred to Protestant mmisters or leaders, through the 
The schools were still taught and inspected by represent- 
atives of the Church, but the form of the organization 
and administration of education was radically changed. 
In England there was a similar transfer of management 



148 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Catholic edu- 
cation largely 
in hands of 
Jesuits. 



Many univer- 
sities adhered 
to Catholic 
authority. 



Others changed 
to Protestant- 
ism with their 
princes. 



to the Protestant clergy. The existence of the schools 
had to be authorized and their teachers licensed by the 
bishop, and they were at all times liable to visitation 
from ecclesiastical authority. The grammar schools, 
however, were never organized like the gymnasia, but 
each school remained independent of the rest and of any 
national combination. Nor were the Calvinistic colleges 
united into a national system, except where they came 
into Germany, when they were absorbed into the sys- 
tem of the gymnasia. The state system of education 
established by the Scotch parHament in the parishes, 
often gave secondary training, as well as elementary. 
And in America the establishment and control of the 
'grammar' schools, inherited from the mother country, 
were vested in the authorities of the state and the several 
towns. On the other hand, the Catholic education in all 
countries found its secondary schools largely in the col- 
leges of the Jesuits, and the subordination - of the in- 
dividual to authority and the Church was insisted upon. 
Influence of the Reformation upon the Universities. — 
In the case of the universities, many remained loyal to 
Catholicism and a few new Catholic foundations grew 
out of the Reformation. All these adhered to the prin- 
ciple of submission to ecclesiastical authority. But the 
majority of the universities in the Protestant states of 
Germany followed their princes when they changed from 
the old creed to the new. Wittenberg, through its con- 
nection with Luther and Melanchthon, was the first 
German university to become Protestant, but others, 
like Marburg, Konigsberg, Jena, Helmstadt, and Dorpat 
followed rapidly. Altdorf and Strassburg were developed 
out of gymnasia. The EngHsh universities, Oxford and 



EDUCATIONAL INFLUENCES OF THE REFORMATION I49 

Cambridge, went over to Protestantism with the na- 
tional Church. In America, too. Harvard and other 
early colleges were closely connected with the various 
commonwealths and with the Calvinistic or the Anglican 
communion, according to the colony. 

The Lapse into Formalism. — There came to be both 
in CathoHc and Protestant institutions a tendency to 
regard the subjects taught as materials for discipline 
rather than as valuable for their content. The studies 
largely became an end in themselves and were deprived 
of almost all their vitality. The curriculum of the in- 
stitutions became fixed and stereotyped in nature, and 
education lapsed into a formalism but little superior to 
that of the mediaeval scholastics. The methods of teach- 
ing came to stress memory more than reason. The Memory 

° •' stressed, rather 

Protestants had claimed to depend less upon uncritical than reason; 

authonty em- 

and obedient acceptance of dogma than upon the con- phasized; and 

,. . r TO' 11 individuaUty 

stant apphcation oi reason to the bcriptures, but they repressed, 
soon tended to emphasize the importance of authority 
and the repression of the individual quite as clearly as 
the Catholics, who definitely held that reason is out of 
place and unreliable as a final guide in education and 
life. Hence, except for launching the great conception 
of state support and control of education, the Reforma- 
tion accomplished but little directly making for indi- 
vidualism and progress, either through the Catholic 
awakening or the Protestant revolts. Education fell 
back before long into the grooves of formalism, repres- 
sion, and distrust of reason. There resulted a tendency 
to test life and the educational preparation for hving by 
a formulation of beUef almost as much as in the days of 
scholasticism. 



150 A STUDENTS HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), chap. XV- 
XVI; Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), chap. VII. An excel- 
lent interpretative account of the Reformation is that in Adams, 
G. B., Civilization during the Middle Ages (Scribner, 1894), chaps. 
XVI and XVII. Painter, F. V. N., furnishes a good translation of 
Luther on Education (Lutheran Publication Society, Philadelphia), 
Richard, J. W., gives a good account of Melanchthon, the Protestant 
Preceptor of Germany (Putnam, 1898), especially chaps. II-IV and 
VII; Watson, F., of Maturinus Corderius, the Schoolmaster of Cal- 
vin (School Review, vol. XII, nos, 4, 7, and 9); Graves, F. P., 
Ramus and the Educational Reformation of the Sixteenth Century 
(Macmillan, 1912) of conditions in France; and Leach, A. F., of 
the dissolution acts of Henry VIII and Edward VI in English 
Schools at the Reformation (Constable, London, 1896), pp. 58-122. 
On the side of Catholic education, one should read Schwicker- 
ath, R., Jesuit Education (Herder, St. Louis), chaps. Ill- VIII and 
XV-XVIII; Cadet, F., Port Royal Education (Bardeen, Syracuse, 
1899; George Allen and Co., London) pp. 9-1 19; and Wilson, Mrs. 
R. F., Christian Brothers (London, 1883), which gives an epitome of 
Ravelet, A., Life of La Salle. The influence of the Reformation 
upon the German schools and universities, both Protestant and 
Catholic, is shown in Nohle E., History of the German School 
System (Report of the United States Commissioner of Education, 
1897-98, vol. I), pp. 30-40; and Paulsen, F., German Education 
(Scribner, 1908), pp. 79-85. 



CHAPTER XIV ^ 



EARLY REALISM AND THE INNOVATORS 
OUTLINE 

The intellectual awakening that appeared in the Renaissance 
and the Reformation found another avenue for expression in early 
realism. 

This movement had two phases: (i) humanistic realism, which 
emphasized the content of classical literature; and (2) social real- 
ism, which strove to adapt education to actual life. But the two 
phases generally occurred together, and the classification of a 
treatise under one head or the other is largely a matter of em- 
phasis. 

The influence of the two phases was mostly indirect, but through 
social realism a special training arose in the Ritterakademien in 
Germany, while Milton's humanistic realism was embodied in the 
'academies' of England, and afterward of America. 

The Rise and Nature of Realism. — By the seventeenth 
century it is obvious that humanism was everywhere 
losing its vitality and declining into a narrow 'Cicero- 
nianism,' and that the Reformation was hardening 
once more into fixed concepts and a dogmatic for- 
mahsm. The awakened intellect of Europe, however, ^ new channel 

^ ^ , io^ the emanci- 

was tending to find still another mode of expression in pation of the 

. individual. 

the educational movement that is usually known as 
'reahsm.' The process of emancipating the individual 
from tradition and repressive authority had not alto- 
gether ceased, but it was manifesting itself mainly 

151 



152 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

through a rather different channel. The movement of 
A method by realism implied a search for a method by which 'real 
things' naay be things' may be known. In its most distinct and latest 
known. form, — 'scnse realism/ it held that real knowledge comes 

'Sense reahsm' ^hj-Qugh the senses and reason rather than through mem- 
ory and reliance on tradition, and in this way it inter- 
preted the 'real things' as being individual objects. 
Educational realism, therefore, concerned itself ulti- 
mately with investigation in the natural sciences; and 
it might well be denominated 'the beginnings of the 
scientific movement,' were it not that such a description 
and the earlier ncglects the earlier phases of the realistic development. 
Humanistic Realism. — For, even before objects were 
regarded as the true realities, there seems to have been 
an effort among some later humanists to seek for the 
'Real things' 'real things' in the ideas that were represented by the 

in ideas, rather . . . 

than words. Written words. This broader type of humamsm, m con- 
sequence, tended to break from a restriction to words 
and set forms and return to the interest in the content 
of classical hterature that marked the Renaissance be- 
fore its decline into formalism. It may, therefore, prop- 
erly be called 'humanistic realism.' With its emphasis 
upon content usually went a study of social and physical 
phenomena, in order to throw light upon the passages 
under consideration. Illustrations of this humanistic 
Milton's realism are found in many writers of the sixteenth and 

musSion^ ^" seventeenth centuries. Milton (1608-1674), for ex- 
ample, while a remarkable classicist himself, in his Trac- 
Jate of Education objects to the usual humanistic educa- 
tion with "its grammatic flats and shallows where they 
stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with lamentable 
construction"; and says of the pupil, "if he have not 



EARLY REALISM AND THE INNOVATORS 1 53 

studied the solid things in them as well as the words and 
lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed as any 
yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother 
dialect only." And he would teach' the Latin writers 
on agriculture, and the Greek writers on natural history, 
geography, and medicine for the sake of the subject- 
matter. 

Social Realism. — But there was another phase of 
early realism, which often appeared in conjunction with 
humanistic education, and may be called 'social realism.' 
Its adherents strove to adapt education to actual living 
in a real world, and to afford direct practical preparation Preparation 

r 1 • • 1 1 • r i«r T ii for living in a 

for the opportunities and duties of life. It was generally real world, 
recommended as the means of education for all members 
of the upper social class. It sought to combine with the 
literary elements taught the clergy in the Middle Ages 
and the scholar in the Renaissance, certain remnants of 
the old chivalric education as the proper training for 
gentlemen. It held schools to be of less value as an 
agency for educating the young aristocrats than training 
through a tutor and travel. Hence an education in 
social realism usually included a study of heraldry, its content, 
genealogy, riding, fencing, and gymnastics, and involved 
a study of modern languages and the customs and insti- 
tutions of neighboring countries. 

A good illustration of this type of education is found 
in the educational essays of Montaigne (1533-1592), 
In the Education of Children he holds that virtue comes Montaigne's 

r • ^ ^ 1 ^ r • • iir Education of 

from expenence and breadth of vision rather than from Children as an 
reading, and declares: "I would have travel the book my 
young gentleman should study with most attention; for 
so many humors, so many sects, so many judgments, 



154 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

opinions, laws, and customs, teach us to judge aright of 
our own, and inform our understanding to discover its 
imperfection and natural infirmity." This training, too, 
he feels, should be under the care of a tutor, who is to be 
^ a man of the world, one "whose head is well tempered, 
rather than well filled." While a gentleman has need of 
Latin and Greek, Montaigne maintains that one should 
first study his own language and those of his neighbors. 
He also stresses physical exercise, and fears the training 
of boys near their mothers, who "will not endure to see 
them mount an unruly horse, nor take a foil in hand 
against a rude fencer." 

An educational work based on social realism that has 
been studied even more than the Essays of Montaigne is 
nmfhts better "^^^^ Thoughts concerning Education by John Locke 
known. (1632-1704). Locke States the aims of education in 

education. ^^^ Order of their value as ' Virtue, Wisdom (i. e., worldly 
wisdom), Breeding, and Learning^; and holds that such 
a training can be secured by the young gentleman only 
through a tutor, who " should himself be well-bred, under- 
standing the Ways of Carriage and Measures of Civility 
in all the Variety of Persons, Times and Places, and keep 
his Pupil, as much as his Age requires, constantly to 
the Observation of them." In considering the subject- 
matter of the training, he maintains that "besides what 
is to be had from Study and Books, there are other 
'Accomplish- Accomplishments necessary for a Gentleman, — dancing, 
of its content, horseback riding, fencing and wrestling." 

The Relations of Humanistic to Social Realism. — 
Humanistic and social realism, however, constantly 
appear together in the works of the same author, and it 
is often difficult to distinguish a writer as advocating 



EARLY REALISM AND THE INNOVATORS 1 55 

one type or the other. The differentiation seems to be 

largely a matter of emphasis. While one element or J^^^fh an^'^ 

the other may seem to be more prominent in the treatise author as of 

•' '^ ^ one type or the 

of a certain author, the two phases of education are other, as can be 

. seen m Milton, 

largely bound up in each other. While Milton, for m- 
stance, is in the main a humanistic realist and advises 
an education in languages and books, he recommends 
that considerable time be given, toward the end of the 
course, to the social sciences — history, ethics, politics, 
economics, theology — and to such practical training 
as would bring one in touch with life. He also specif- 
ically advocates the experience and knowledge that 
would come from travel in England and abroad; and 
defines education as "that which fits a man to perform- 
justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices both 
private and pubUc of peace and war." On the other Montaigne, 
hand, Montaigne, the social realist, seems quite as 
strenuous in urging a more realistic humanism. In his 
essay. On Pedantry, he launches most vigorous ridicule 
against the prevailing narrow humanistic education, 
with its memorizing of words and forms, and insists: 
"Let the master not only examine him about the words 
of his lesson, but also as to the sense and meaning of 
them, and let him judge of the profit he has made, not 
by the testimony of his memory, but that of his under- 
standing." 

And it is equally difficult to state whether humanistic and others 
or social elements prevail in Locke's Thoughts, the 
Gargantua of Rabelais (1495-1553), the Positions of 
Mulcaster (1530-1611), and other treatises of the period. 
It is true, of course, that in certain other works written 
upon the training of the aristocracy, social realism is 



156 A student's history of education 

more exclusively stressed. The titles of most of these 

reveal their content, as can easily be seen in the case 

of such productions as Castiglione's The Courtier (1528), 

Distinctive Elyot's The Govemour (1531), Peacham's The Compleat 

social realists. / y \ ii-» ^ ' ^ rr<i r> t i ^ 

Gentleman (1622), and Brathwaite s The English Gentle- 
man (1630). But, in most of the early realistic works, 
humanistic and social elements are inextricably inter- 
woven; and humanistic and social realism, taken to- 
gether, seem to constitute a natural bridge from human- 
ism over to sense realism. 
The Influence of the Innovators upon Education. — 
-^ There is, however, a variety of other brilhant educa- 
other sugges- tional Suggestions in each of these early realists. All 

tions m the ^'^ -^ . . 

early realists, of them hold to a broader and better rounded traimng 
and more natural and informal methods than those in 
vogue. Mulcaster even advocates universal elementary 
education, the professional training of teachers, and 
the education of girls, and undertakes to make a naive 
analysis of the mind as the basis of a philosophy of 
education. So suggestive have the recommendations 
of the early reaUsts proved to modern education that 
these authors are often known as the 'innovators.' Yet 
their theories do not seem to have affected greatly the 
educational practice of the times. They did tend to dis- 
rupt traditionalism and the formal humanism, to bring 

But their in- education into touch with society and preparation for 

fluence was in- ... , , . . , , 

direct. real life, and to popularize a wider content and a more 

informal procedure, but their influence appeared through 
their successors and later education rather than directly 
in the schools of the period. Locke, for instance, in 
addition to the influence he had upon Rousseau, Pes- 
talozzi, and other reformers, must in some measure have 



EARLY REALISM AND THE INNOVATORS 1 57 

been responsible for the great development of the physi- 
cal and ethical sides of education in the public and gram- 
mar schools of England, together with the tendency 
of these institutions to consider such aspects of rather 
more importance than the purely intellectual. His plea 
for a tutor as the means of shaping manners and morals 
has also probably had its effect upon the education of 
the English aristocracy. , ,v» - 4j 

The Ritterakademien. — In the German states, on the 
other hand, there arose at the courts during the seven- 
teenth century an actually new type of educational 
institution as the outgrowth of social realism. Here, 
in place of the old humanistic education, there was de- 
veloped a special training for the young nobles in French, ^"^^'nob^iif^'in 
Italian, Spanish, and English, in such accompHshments modern lan- 

^ . . . . guages, chival- 

as courtly conduct, dancing, fencing, and riding, and nc arts, and 

the scieDces. 

in philosophy, mathematics, physics, geography, statis- 
tics, law, genealogy, and heraldry. The educational 
institutions in which this training was embodied were 
known as Ritterakademien or 'academies for the nobles.' 
Such academies were founded at Colberg, Luneberg, 
Vienna, Wolflfenbiittel, and many other centers before 
the close of the century. They originally covered the 
work of the gymnasia, although substituting the modem 
languages, sciences, and the knightly arts that have 
been mentioned for the Greek and Hebrew, and adding 
a little from the course of the university. Gradually, 
however, they became part of the regular secondary ^condanr "^^ 

system. system. 

The Academies in England. — Milton's suggestions 
were ultimately materialized in an even more influen- 
tial type of school. In the Tractate he had recommended 



158 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Milton's sug- 
gestions 
adopted by 
Puritans after 
the Act of 
Uniformity. 



The first 
academies. 



Their content. 



that his ideal education be carried out in an institution 
to be known as an 'academy.' Such a school was to be 
erected 'in every city throughout this land.' It should 
train boys from the age of twelve to twenty-one, and 
should provide both secondary and higher education. 
'Academies,' based very closely upon this plan, were 
about a generation later actually organized in a number 
of places by the Puritans. Under the harsh Act of 
Uniformity (1662) two thousand non-conforming clergy- 
men were driven from their parishes, and in many in- 
stances found school- teaching a congenial means of 
earning a Hvelihood, and at the same time of furnishing 
higher education to the young dissenters, who were 
excluded from the universities and grammar schools. 
The first of these academies was that estabHshed by 
Richard Frankland at Rathmill in 1665, and this was 
followed by the institutions of John Woodhouse at 
Sheriff hales, of Charles Morton at Newington Green, 
and of some thirty other educators of whom we have 
record at other places. These academies were largely hu- 
manistic in their reaUsm, and, since their chief function 
was to fit for the ministry, they included Latin, Greek, and 
Hebrew in their course, but they were also rich in mathe- 
matics, natural and social sciences, modern languages, 
and the vernacular. The new tendency was also broad- 
ened and amplified by Locke's Thoughts (1693), which 
became the great guide for the managers of the Puritan 
academies. In 1689, when the Act of Toleration put 
non-conformity upon a legal footing, the academies 
were allowed to be regularly incorporated. 

The Academies in America. — Academies arose also 
in America. When the number of reHgious denomina- 



EARLY REALISM AND THE INNOVATORS 1 59 

tions had greatly increased and the demands upon 
secondary education had expanded, the 'grammar 
schools' (see pp. 120 f.), with their narrow denomina- 
tional ideals and their limitation to a classical training 
and college preparation, proved inadequate, and efforts 
were made to organize academies as a supplement. Their rise as a 
There may have been earlier academies in America, the narrow 
but the first well-known suggestion of an academy was schools'. 
made in 1743 by Benjamin FrankHn. He wished to 
inaugurate an education that would prepare for life, and 
not merely for college. Accordingly, he proposed for 
the youth of Pennsylvania a course in which EngHsh 
grammar and composition, penmanship, arithmetic, 
drawing, geography, history, the natural sciences, ora- 
tory, civics, and logic were to be emphasized. He would 
gladly have excluded Latin and other languages alto- 
gether, but for politic reasons these courses were allowed 
to be elective. Through the efforts of a number of lead- 
ing citizens, such an academy was opened at Philadelphia Jcadmi'Js 
(Fig. 32), in January, 1750 (although not chartered until 
July, 1 753) . During the next generation a number of sim- 
ilar institutions sprang up, especially in the middle and 
southern colonies. A great impulse was given the move- 
ment by the foundation of the two Phillips academies, — 
one in 1780 at Andover, Massachusetts, and the other the 
next year at Exeter, New Hampshire. The Dummer 
Grammar School was reorganized as an academy in 
1782, and the movement spread rapidly throughout ^ 

New England during the last two decades of the eight- 
eenth century. 

Shortly after the Revolution, owing in part to the 
inabiHty or unwillingness of the towns to maintain Revolution the 



i6o A student's history of education 

prevailing type grammar schools, and in part to the wider appeal and 

of secondary ° . 

education. greater usefulness of the academies, the latter institu- 
tions quite eclipsed the former, and became for about 
half a century the prevailing type of secondary school 
in the United States. They were usually endowed in- 
stitutions managed by a close corporation, but were 
often largely supported by subscriptions from the neigh- 
borhood, and sometimes subsidized by the state. Lo-^ 
bcadon'and cated in small towns or villages, they served a wide 
functions. constituency and made provision for boarding, as well 
as day pupils. Unlike the grammar schools, they were 
not originally intended to prepare for the learned pro- 
fessions exclusively, but, as time passed, they tended 
more and more to become preparatory schools for the 
colleges, instead of finishing schools for the middle classes 
of society. The academies were also the first institu- 
. tions of secondary education to offer opportunities to 
women. Many of them were co-educational, and others, 
frequently burdened with the name of 'female seminary,' 
were for girls exclusively. Academies for some time like- 
wise furnished the only means of training teachers for 
the elementary schools, and have generally played an 
important part in education in the United States. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), chap. XVTI; 
and Great Educators of Three Centuries (Macmillan, 191 2), chaps. I 
and V; Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 442-460. An 
excellent edition of Milton's Tractate of Education is that by 
Morris, E. E. (Macmillan, 1895); of Montaigne's Education of 
Children that by Rector, L. E. (Appleton, 1899); of Locke's 
Thoughts concerning Education, and of Mulcaster's Positions, 



EARLY REALISM AND THE INNOVATORS l6l 

those by Quick, R. H. (Cambridge University Press, 1895, and 
Longmans, 1888, respectively); and of Rabelais' Garganiua, that 
by Besant, W. (Lippincott, Foreign Classics for English Readers). 
The works of Castiglione, Elyot, Peacham, Brathwaite, etc., are 
also extant. For an account of the Ritterakademien, see Nohle, E., 
History of the German School System (Report of the U. S. Commis- 
sioner of Education, 1897-98), pp. 41 f., and Paulsen, F., German 
Education (Scribner, 1908), pp. 11 2-1 16; and of the academies, 
Brown, E. E., The Making of Our Middle Schools (Longmans, 
Green, 1902), chaps. VIII and IX. 



CHAPTER XV 
> 

SENSE REALISM AND THE EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT 

OUTLINE 

In the seventeenth century scientific investigation developed 
rapidly, and led theorists to introduce science into the curriculum 
and to advocate a study of ' real things.' 

Bacon undertook to formulate induction, and while he did not 
understand the importance of an hypothesis, he did much to rid 
the times of a priori reasoning. 

On the basis of sense realism, Ratich anticipated many prin- 
ciples of modern pedagogy, but he was unsuccessful in applying 
his ideas. 

Comenius (i) produced texts for teaching Latin objectively, 
(2) crystallized his educational principles in the Great Didactic, 
and (3) attempted an encyclopaedic organization of knowledge. 
He wished to make this knowledge part of the course at every 
stage of education, and, while he was not consistently inductive, 
he made a great advance in the use of this method. 

Through sense realism, rudimentary science was introduced into 
the elementary schools; the Ritterakademien and the pietist schools 
stressed the subject; and professorships of science were founded in 
the universities. 

The Development of the Sciences and Realism. — The 

realistic tendency did not pause with reviving the ideas 

represented by the words nor with the endeavor to bring 

Earlier realism the pupil into touch with the life he was to lead. The 

sense^^reaUsm! earlier reaUsm seems to have been simply a stage in the 

process of transition from the narrow and formal human- 

162 



SENSE REALISM AND EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT 1 63 

ism to a realism obtained through the senses, which may 
be regarded as the beginning of the modern movement to 
develop the natural sciences. Science had started to de- 
velop as early as the time of the schoolman, Roger Bacon 
(12 14-1294), but for three centuries it was not kindly re- 
ceived. Even during the Renaissance the Church had 
continued to oppose it bitterly, because it tended to con- Opposition to 
fiict with religious dogma, although this age did not ob- 
ject to the revival of the classics. Accordingly, the latter 
subject became strongly intrenched in educational tradi- 
tion, and its advocates ofifered the most obstinate opposi- 
tion to the sciences. Its numerous representatives 
struggled hard to keep the sciences out of education. 

However, concomitant with the growth of reason and 
the partial removal of the theological ban, tTiere was 
developed a remarkable scientific movement, with a 
variety of discoveries and inventions. For more than a 
millennium the Greek developments in astronomy and Development 

■^ •'of physics and 

physics had been accepted as final, but toward the close astronomy in 

r 1 • 11' *-"e seven- 

of the sixteenth and durmg the seventeenth century these teenth century. 

dicta were completely upset. The hypothesis of a solar 

system, which replaced the Ptolemaic interpretation, 

was published by Copernicus (1473-1543); Kepler >^ 

(1571-1630) explained the motion of the planets by three 

simple laws; and, through the construction of a telescope, 

Galileo (i 564-1642) revealed new celestial phenomena. 

GaHleo also demonstrated that all bodies, allowing for 

the resistance of the air, fall at the same rate; by means of 

the barometer, Torricelli (1608-1647) a-^d Boyle (1627- 

1691) proved the existing theories of a vacuum incorrect, 

and formulated important laws concerning the pressure 

of gases; and Guericke (1602-1686), inspired by their 



164 A student's history of education 

discoveries, succeeded in constructing an air-pump. 
Investigations of this kind paved the way for the formu- 
lation of the law of universal gravitation and the laws of 
motion by Sir Isaac Newton (1642-17 2 7), which united 
the universe into a single comprehensive system and 
completed the foundations for modern mechanics. 
Development Likewise, about the same time, the other great develop- 

01 anatomy ' ' o ir' 

and physi- mcut in scicucc amoug the Greeks, — anatomy and 
physiology, was completely revolutionized. Through the 
discovery of valves in the veins by means of dissection 
and vivisection, the hypothesis of the double circulation 
of the blood by Harvey (i 578-1657), and the microscopic 
demonstrations by Malpighi (1628-1694) of the existence 
of capillaries connecting the veins and the arteries, the 
old theory of the motion of the blood through suction, 
which had been promulgated by Galen, was completely 
shattered, and a great impetus was given to investiga- 
tions in anatomy and physiology. In consequence of 
this scientific progress, the educational theorists began to 
introduce science and a knowledge of real things into the 
curriculum. It came to be widely felt that humanism 
gave a knowledge only of words, books, and opinions, and 
did not even at its best lead to a study of real things. 
Hence, new methods and new books were produced, to 
shorten and improve the study of the classical languages, 
and new content was imported into the courses of study. 
The movement also included an attempt at a formulation 
of scientific principles in education and an adaptation to 
the nature of the child. 

Bacon and His Inductive Method. — The new tend- 
ency, however, did not appear in education until after 
the time of Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The use of the 



SENSE REALISM AND EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT 1 65 

scientific method by the various discoverers was largely Bacon rejected 

. the deductive 

unconscious, and it remained for iJacon to formulate method of the 
what he called the method of 'induction/ and by advo- ^^' 
eating its use, to point the way to its development as a 
scientific method in education. He is, therefore, or- 
dinarily known as the first sense reaHst. He reacted 
from deductive logic, which was currently supposed to be 
the sole method of Aristotle, and took his cue in formulat- 
ing a new method of reasoning from the many scientific 
workers of his time. He made a great advance in his 
rejection of the contemporary method of attempting to 
estabhsh the first principles of a science, and then deduc- 
ing from them by means of the syllogism all the proposi- 
tions which that science could contain. However, his 
Novum Organum, or 'new instrument,' as he called his 
treatise, in endeavoring to create a method whereby any- 
one could attain all the knowledge of which the human 
mind was capable, undertook far too much, and resulted 

hilt" fTfMi f pifl 9. 

m a merely mechanical procedure. Briefly stated, his mechanical 
plan was, after ridding the mind of individual prejudices, ^^°^ ^^' 
to observe and carefully tabulate lists of all the facts of 
nature, and from these discover the underlying law by 
comparing the cases where a certain phenomenon appears 
and where it does not. , 

But by this method neither Bacon himself nor anyone 
else has ever made any real contribution to science. 
It does not follow that, because all observed cases under 
certain conditions produce a particular effect, every other 
instance not yet observed will necessarily have the same ,,,.,, 

- He failed to 

effect. The true method of induction, which was evident formulate the 

. . , . true inductive 

even in the work oi Kepler, and came to be more so in the method, 
discoveries of Harvey and Newton, stresses rather the 



i66 A student's history of education 

part played by scientific imagination, as it is manifested 
by men of geniUs in the forming of an hypothesis. The 
modern procedure is as follows: — When certain effects 
are observed, of which the cause or law is unknown, the 
scientist frames an hypothesis (i. e., makes a conjecture) 
to account for them; then he tests this h3^othesis, by 
collecting facts and comparing with these facts the con- 
clusions to which his hypothesis would lead; and, if they 
correspond or agree, he holds that his h3^othesis has 
been confirmed or verified, and maintains that he has 
discovered the cause or law. Nevertheless, while Bacon 
did not formulate the inductive method of modern 
science, he largely helped to rid the times of an unwise 
the^fmes^oFa dependence upon a priori reasoning, and he did call 
gm reason- attention to the necessity of careful observation and ex- 
perimentation, and thus opened the way for real induc- 
tive procedure. Probably no book ever made a greater 
revolution in modes of thinking or overthrew more 
prejudices than Bacon's Novum Organum. 

Bacon's Educational Suggestions and Influence. — 
Bacon was not a teacher, and his treatment of educational 
problems appears in brief and scattered passages. While 
he offers isolated suggestions concerning the mental and 
moral training of the young, he plans no serious modifica^ 
tion in the existing organization of schools. He does, 
Bacon was not however, in his New Atlantis imply an interest in promot- 

especially in- , . , 

terested in edu- ing scientific research and higher education. In the ideal 
society depicted in that work, he describes an organiza- 
tion of scholars called 'Salomon's House,' whose mem- 
bers in their investigations anticipate much that sci- 
entists and inventors have to-day only just begun to 
realize. Among these anticipations were the variation of 



SENSE REALISM AND EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT 1 67 

species, the infusion of serums, vivisection, telescopes, 
telephones, flying-machines, submarine boats, and steam- 
engines. From this description Bacon would seem to 
beheve that education should be organized upon the 
basis of society's gradually accumulating a knowledge of 
nature and imparting it to all pupils at every stage. At 
any rate, in his Advancement of Learning, he definitely ' 
suggests a wider course of study, more complete equip- 
ment for scientific investigation, a closer cooperation 
among institutions of learning, and a forwarding of 
'unfinished sciences.' And such a plan of pansophia, or 
'universal knowledge,' was specified in the educational 
creed of the later sense reahsts, who worked out the 
Baconian theory of education. Hence, while not skilled 
or greatly interested in education himself. Bacon in- 
fluenced profoundly the writing of many who were, and ^?^ ^? sugges- 
has done much to shape the spirit of modern practice, fluenced 

, . Ratich and 

His method was first apphed directly to education by Comenius. 
a German known as Ratich, and, in a more effective way, 
by Comenius, a Moravian. 

Ratich's Methods. — Ratich (1571-1635) probably be- 
came acquainted with the sense realism of Bacon while 
studying in England, and, when about forty years of age, 
undertook to found a systern of education upon it. In 
linguistic training, Hke all realists, he insisted that one 
" should first study the vernacular" as an introduction to 
other languages. He also held to the principle of "one Lm&uistic 
thing at a time and often repeated." By this he meant 
that, in studying a language, one should master a single 
book before taking up another. In his teaching at 
Kothen, as soon as his pupils knew their letters, they were 
required to learn Genesis thoroughly for the sake of their 



i68 



A student's history of education 



German. Each chapter was read twice by the teacher, 
while the pupil followed the text with his finger. When 
the pupils could read the book perfectly, they were 
taught grammar from it as a text. The teacher pointed 
out the various parts of speech and made the boys 
find other examples, and had them decline, conjugate, 
and parse. In taking up Latin, a play of Terence was 

prindpi^^'^'^"^ treated in similar fashion. Others of the principles that 
he used in teaching language and grammar, and especially 
those which applied to education in general, were even 
more distinctly realistic. Such, for example, were his 
precepts, — "follow the order of nature" and "every- 
thing by experiment and induction," and his additional 
recommendation that "nothing is to be learned by rote." 
Thus Ratich not only helped shape some of the best 
methods for teaching languages, but anticipated the 
main principles of modern pedagogy. While, owing to 
obtrusive failings in character and experience, he was 
uniformly unsuccessful in his practice, he, nevertheless, 
stirred up considerable thought and stimulated many 
treatises of others. Thus, through Comenius, who 
carried out his principles more fully, this German in- 
novator, unpractical as he was, became a spiritual 
ancestor to Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Herbart. 

Comenius: His Training and Work. — John Amos Co- 
menius (i 592-1670) was born at Nivnitz, Moravia, and 
was by religious inheritance a staunch adherent of the 
Moravian Church. After a course in a Latin school, 

Education, he spent a couple of years in higher education at the 
Lutheran College of Herborn and at the University of 

wanderings, Heidelberg. In consequence of many vicissitudes in 
life, he lived and wrote in a number of places, and be- 



Influence. 



SENSE REALISM AND EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT 1 69 

came acquainted with the work of a variety of men 
engaged in educational reform and advancement. While 
the problems with which they were dealing were similar 
to his own and largely influenced his educational posi- 
tions, he far surpassed them all in scope of work and 
greatness of repute. His educational achievements were 
the outgrowth of sense realism, and appear in three 
directions: — (i) the series of texts for learning Latin; and aciueve- 
(2) his Great Didactic; and (3) his attempts to create an 
encyclopaedic organization of knowledge {pansophia). 
His Series of Latin Texts. — The first of the famous 
texts that Comenius produced to facilitate the study of 
Latin was issued in 1631, and has generally been known 
by the name of Janua Linmarum Reserata (The Gate of The plan of the 

° , Janua. 

Languages Unlocked). It was intended as an introduc- 
tory book to the study of Latin, and consisted of an 
arrangement into sentences of several thousand Latin 
words for the most familiar objects and ideas. The 
Latin was printed on the right-hand side of the page, and 
on the left was given a translation in the vernacular. 
By this means the pupil obtained a grasp of all ordinary 
scientific knowledge and at the same time a start in his 
Latin vocabulary. In writing this text, Comenius may 
have been somewhat influenced by Ratich, a review of 
whose methods he had read at Herbom, but he seems to 
have been more specifically indebted both for his method 
and the felicitous name of his book to a Jesuit known as 
Bateu s, who had written a similar work. 

It was soon apparent that the Janua would be too 
difficult for beginners, and two years later Comenius 
issued his Vestibulum (Vestibule), as an introduction to The Vestibu^ 
it. While the Janua contained all the ordinary words of 



lyo 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Atrium, 



Palatium, 



the language, — some eight thousand, there were but a 
few hundred of the most common in the Vestibulum. 
Later both of the works were several times revised, 
modified, and enlarged; and grammars, lexicons, and 
treatises were written to accompany them. He also 
published a third Latin reader, the Atrium (Entrance 
Hall) , which took the pupil one stage beyond the Janua. 
We know, too, that he intended also to write a still more 
advanced work, to be called Sapientiae Palatium (Palace 
of Wisdom). This fourth book was to consist of selec- 
tions from the best Latin authors, but it was never com- 
pleted. He did, however, produce as a supplementary 
text-book a simpler and more extensive edition of the 
Janua, accompanied with pictures. Each object in the 
illustrations of this book was marked with a number 
corresponding to one in the text. This work, which he 
called Orhis Sensualium Pictus (The World of Sense 
Objects Pictured), is the first illustrated reading book on 
record (Fig. 21). 

The Great Didactic. — But these books on teaching 
Latin reaUstically were only part of the work that 
Comenius contemplated. During his whole career he 
had in mind a definite idea of the aim of education, and 
of what, in consequence, he wished the organization, 
subject-matter, and methods to be. His ideas on the 
whole question of education were formulated in his 
Great Didactic even before the Janua appeared, but the 
work was not published until 1657. In it he strove to 
organi^tfon of assimilate all that was good in the realistic movement-l 
education. ^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^ foundation. He developed many of the 

principles and methods of Ratich, Bateus, and others, but 
he owed a greater debt for the suggestions he took from 



and Orbis 
Pictus. 



Indebtedness 
to others. 



(1^) 



Muntero Caps, 20. &C. 

So the Furrier 
maketh Furred Garments 
of Furs. 



Amt'culum, 20. &C. 

Sic Pellio 
facit Pellicia 
h Pellibus. 



The Shoemaker. 



LXIII. 



Sutor. 




The Shoemaker, 1 . 
maketh Slippers, 7. 
Shoes, 8. 

(in which is seen 
above, the Upper-leather, 
beneath the Sole, 
and on both sides 
the Latchets) 
Boots, 9. 

and High Shoes, 10, 
o{ Leather, 5. 

(which is cut with a 

Cutting-knife), 6. 

by means of an Awl, 2. 

and Ling el, 3. 

upon a Last, 4. 



Sutor, 1. 
conficit Crepidas (San- 
dal ia,) 7. Calceos, 8. 
(in quibus spectatur 
superne Obstragulum^ 
in feme Solea, 
et utrinque 
Ansce) 
Ocreas, 9. 
et Per ones, 10. 
e Corio, 5, 

(quod discinditur 
Scalp ro Sutorio, 6,) 
ope Subulce, 2. 
et V\Y\ picati, 3. 
super Modum, 4. 



Fig. 21. — A page from the Orhis Picius of Comenius, illustrating a 

lesson on a trade. 
(Reproduced from the edition published by C. W. Bardeen, 1887.) 



SENSE REALISM AND EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT 171 

Bacon's Advancement of Learning, and even more from 
the Encyclopcedia of Alsted, one of his teachers at 
Herborn. In the Great Didactic Comenius formulated an 
educational aim and constructed an educational or- 
ganization of his own. Probably, as an outgrowth of his 
religious attitude, he held to 'knowledge, moraHty, and 
piety' as the ideals of education, and advocated universal 
education for 'boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich 
and poor.' ta^ organization of education consisted of 
four periods of six years each. The first period of instruc- 
tion was that through infancy, or up to the age of six. 
It was to be given in the school of 'the mother's lap/ 
which should exist in every house. For childhood, or-, 
from six to twelve, was to be organized the 'vernacular " 
school,' which should appear in every hamlet and village. 
From that time up to eighteen comes the 'Latin school,' 
to be maintained in every city; and, finally, for youth 
from eighteen to twenty-four, there should be a university 'T 
in every kingdom or province. Such an organization 
would have made education universal, and would tend 
to bring about the custom of education according to . 
ability, rather than social status, which was a suggestion 
some three centuries in advance of the times. 

His Encyclopaedic Arrangement of Knowledge. — The 
rest of the works of Comenius may be regarded as ampli- 
fications of various parts of this Great Didactic. Besides 
the Janual series, which he seems to have written for 
the Latin school, he produced a set of texts for the 
vernacular school, which soon disappeared, and a hand- 
book for the lowest work, called The School of Infancy. 
But the phase of the Great Didactic most often elaborated 

1 !• • e 7 • < • Pansophic 

was the realistic one of pansopma or umversal knowl- training at 



172 A student's history of education 

education^^ °' edge.' This principle was not only exemplified in such 
works as the Janua and Orbis Pictus and in treatises he 
V wrote upon astronomy and physics, but in various educa- 
K tional institutions that he undertook to found, and it 
remained the ruling passion throughout his life. In the 
Great Didactic he went so far as to hold that an encyclopae- 
dic training should be given at every stage of education, — 
\ mother school, vernacular school, Latin school, and 
university. 

But, while even in the mother school the infant was to 
make a beginning with geography, history, and various 
sciences, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, music, arith- 
metic, geometry, and astronomy, and the rudiments of 
economics, politics, ethics, metaphysics, and religion, his 
attainment was not expected to be as formidable as the 
names of the subjects sound. It was to consist merely 
Each succeed- in understanding simple causal, temporal, spatial, and 
large the body numerical relations; in distinguishing sun, moon, and 
stars, hills, valleys, lakes, and rivers, and animals and 



plants; in learning to express oneself; and in acquiring 
proper habits. It was, in fact, not unlike the training of 
the modern kindergarten. In a similar way each succeed- 
ing stage is to enlarge the body of knowledge along all 
these lines. "The different schools are not to deal with 
different subjects, but should treat the same subjects in 
different ways; throughout graduating the instruction to 
the age of the pupil and the knowledge that he already 
possesses. In the earlier schools everything is taught in a 
general and undefined manner, while in those which 
follow the information is particularized and exact." 
Moreover, beyond the university, which, like the lower 
schools, was to make teaching its chief function, Comen- 



SENSE REALISM AND EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT 1 73 

ius held it to be important that somewhere in the world 

there should be a 'didactic college' devoted to scientific Suege^'lof aU 

investigation, in which learned men from all nations nations. 

should cooperate. Such an institution would form a 

logical climax to his system of schools, bearing the 

same relation to them that the stomach does to the 

other members of the body by "supplying blood, life, and 

strength to all." 

The Method of Nature. — The way in which this 
pansophic instruction should be given, Comenius also 
intended to have in full accord with sense realism. He 
insists that the 'method of nature' must be observed 
and followed, and then shows how nature accomplishes 
all things 'with certainty, ease, and thoroughness,' in 
what respects schools have deviated from the principles 
of nature, and how they can be rectified only by follow- 
ing her plans. These principles concerning the working 
of nature were laid down a priori, but it is probable 
that they had been previously worked out inductively 
from his schoolroom experience. At times, though, they 
were put in the form of fanciful analogies. For example, analogies, 
he declares that because a bird by nature hatches her 
young in the spring or early part of the year, schools 
have erred (i) in not requiring education to begin in the 
springtime of life, or boyhood, and (2) in not selecting 
the springtime of the day, or the morning hours, for study. 

But it is not remarkable that, with all his realistic 
tendencies, Comenius did not consistently employ induc- 
tion. The natural sciences were young in his day, so 
that he did not altogether grasp their content and 
method, and he had partially inherited the scholastic 
notion that truth cannot be fully secured through the 



174 A student's history of education 

senses or by reason. It is sufficient merit that Comenius, 
for the first time in history, appUed anything hke indue- 
but more fully tion to teaching. Moreover, in the appHcation of his 
elsewhere. general method to the specific teaching of various lines, 
—sciences, reading, writing, singing, languages, morality, 
and piety, he utilized more fully the induction of Bacon. 
For example, after showing the necessity for careful 
observation in obtaining a knowledge of the sciences, he 
gives nine useful precepts for their study that are clearly 
the inductive result of his own experience as a teacher. 
Likewise, he insists that, in teaching the sciences, in 
order to make a genuine impression upon the mind, one 
must deal with realities rather than books. The objects 
themselves, or where this is not possible, such representa- 
tions of them as can be conveyed by copies, models, and 
pictures, must be studied. After the same principle he 
formulates inductive rules and methods for instruction 
in the other subjects. 

The Influence of Comenius upon Education. — Thus 
the work of Comenius was based primarily upon sense 
realism, but he added many modifications and new ele- 
ments of his own. He may in the fullest sense be con- 
sidered the great educational theorist and practical re- 
former of the seventeenth century. His practical ability 

Popularity of . .hi • i • r t • 

his Latin text- IS especially shown in the series of Latin text-books, 
which far excelled the works of several contemporaries 
on similar lines. The Janua was translated into a dozen 
European, and at least three Asiatic languages; the 
Orhis Pictus proved even more popular, and went through 
an almost unlimited number of editions in various 
tongues; and the whole series became for many genera- 
tions the favorite means of introducing young people 



books, 



SENSE REALISM AND EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT 1 75 

to the study of Latin. But the remarkable theoretical 
work of Comenius had little efTect upon the schools of b"t 

^ Ignorance of 

the period, and until about the middle of the nineteenth the Great Di- 
dactic, 
century the Great Didactic was scarcely known. At 

that time, when this treatise of Comenius was brought 
to light by German investigators, it was discovered that 
the old reaHst of the seventeenth century had been the 
first to deal with education in a scientific spirit, and work 
out its problems practically in the schools. And the 
principles of Comenius were at the time unconsciously 
taken up by others and indirectly became the basis of ^}jjj.jj ^^ 
modern education. His spirit appeared not only in the ^^^ect basis of 
ideas of subsequent theorists — Francke, Rousseau, Base- modem educa- 
dow, Pestalozzi, Herbart, Froebel — but even in the 
actual curricula and methods of educational institutions. 
Realistic Tendencies in Elementary Schools. — While 
the effect of sense realism upon the schools seems to have 
been slow and indirect, the movement was obvious even 
in the seventeenth century. In Germany there came a 
decided tendency throughout the elementary schools to 
increase instruction in the vernacular, as recommended slow and in- 
by Ratich and Comenius, and to learn first the German vernacular and 
grammar rather than the Latin. With this movement sd^ce^lntro- 
was joined the increase in universal and compulsory ^"^^'^• 
education urged by the reformers, and an introduction of 
elementary science, in addition to reading, writing, arith- 
metic, rehgion, and singing. At Weimar in 1619, through 
a pupil of Ratich, a new school system was organized; 
and in 1642, under the order of Duke Ernst, Andreas 
Reyher prepared a new course for Gotha, which afforded 
elementary instruction in the natural sciences, as well 
as the rudiments and rehgion. This work included teach- 



176 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Science in the 

RiUerakade- 

mien, 



P'ddagogium, 



and Realschtde, 



and In gram- 
mar schools 
and academies. 



ing the children to measure with the hour-glass and 
sun-dial, to observe the ordinary plants and animals, and 
to carry on other objective studies of a simple character. 
Many other attempts at instruction in science were 
made elsewhere in the German states, both in private 
and public education, and the same tendency appeared in 
the states of Italy, and in France, Holland, and England. 
Secondary Schools. — But the new reaUstic tendencies 
appeared also in secondary education. While in Ger- 
many it was not until the eighteenth century that there 
were any evidences of sense reahsm in the gymnasia, 
languages of neighboring countries and considerable 
science appeared in the Ritterakademien (see .p. 157) 
by the middle of the seventeenth, and toward the end 
of the century in the schools of Francke and other 'pie- 
tists ' at Halle were embodied all the reahstic elements of 
Comenius. While the pietists adopted these ideas 
largely for their religious side, as a protest and reaction 
to the rationalistic Ritterakademien, they did not hesi- 
tate also to stress the science content and the study of 
the vernacular. In the secondary school known as the 
Fddagogium, which he had started for well-to-do boys, 
Francke included training in the vernacular, mathe- 
matics, geography, natural science, astronorny, anatomy, 
and materia medica; and the Realschule, established by 
his colleague, Semler, went even more fully into the 
vernacular, mathematics, and the sciences, pure and 
apphed. This reahstic instruction of the pietists was 
brought by Hecker to Berlin, where he started his famous 
Realschule in 1747, and similar institutions soon spread 
throughout Prussia. In England, while very few of 
the grammar and pubhc schools (see p. 120) as yet intro- 



SENSE REALISM AND EARLY SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT 1 77 

duced even the elements of science into their course, 
the academies (see p. 157) were rich in sciences, mathe- 
matics, and the vernacular. This was also true of the 
academies that sprang up in America (see p. 158). 

The Universities. — The universities were slower in 
responding to the movement of sense realism. As the 
result of its pietistic origin, however, the University of 
Halle was reaHstic almost from its beginning in 1692. HaUe^^c'sttin- 
Gottingen, the next institution to become hospitable g^n, and other 

° _ _ ^ univereities, 

to the tendency, did not start it until 1737. But soon 
afterward the movement became general, and by the end 
of the eighteenth century all the German universities 
— at least, all under Protestant auspices — had created 
professorships in the sciences. While the English uni- 
versities, Oxford and Cambridge, were much slower than *°^ cam-^""* 
those of Germany in adopting the new subjects, and it bridge, 
was a century and a half before these institutions be- 
came known for their science, during the professorship 
of Isaac Newton (1669-1702) considerable was done 
toward making Cambridge mathematical and scientific, 
and in the course of the eighteenth century several 
chairs in the sciences were estabhshed. Besides formu- 
lating the law of gravitation, Newton lectured and wrote Great work of 
at Cambridge upon calculus, astronomy, optics, and the 
spectrum. He became one of the greatest mathemati- 
cians and physicists the world has known, and he did 
much to create a scientific atmosphere in other educa- 
tional institutions, as well as Cambridge. America also 
felt the scientific impulse in its higher institutions. Some 
study of astronomy, botany, and physics was possible Sdencein 
at Harvard even in the seventeenth century, and during colleges, 
the eighteenth Yale, Princeton, King's (afterward Colum- 



178 A student's history of education 

bia), Dartmouth, Union, and Pennsylvania all came to 
offer a little work in physics, and at times in chemistry, 
geology, astronomy, and biology. In his proposals for 
the prospective 'seminary' in New York (1753), which 
was destined to become Columbia University, and in the 
actual course of the academy at Philadelphia (later the 
University of Pennsylvania), over which he presided, 
Dr. William Smith put a most progressive program of 
sciences, including the rudiments of mechanics, physics, 
chemistry, geology, astronomy, botany, zoology, and 
physiology. But for half a century after this Amer- 
ican institutions did Uttle with the sciences as labora- 
tory studies. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), chap. XVIII; 
and Great Educators of Three Centuries (Macmillan, 191 2), chaps. 
II, IV, and VI; Monroe, Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 461-501. 
The following works are standard for the authors mentioned: 
Adamson, J. W., Pioneers of Modern Education (Macmillan, 1905), 
chap. Ill (Bacon); Barnard, H., German Teachers and Educators, 
PP- 343-370 (Ratich); Fowler, T., Bacon's Novum Orgattum (Ox- 
ford, Clarendon Press); Laurie, S. S., John Amos Comenius (Bar- 
deen, Syracuse, 1892); Monroe, W. S., Comenius (Scribner, 1900); 
and Quick, R. H., Educational Reformers (Appleton, 1896), chap. 
IX (Ratich) and X (Comenius). An account of sense realism is 
afforded by Adamson, op. cit., chap. I, and of its effect upon the 
schools by Barnard, op. cit., pp. 302-317, and by Paulsen, F., 
German Education (Scribner, 1908), pp. 1 17-133. 



CHAPTER XVI 

FORMAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION 

OUTLINE 

Locke is often classed with the advocates of realism or of nat- 
uralism, but the keynote to his thought is 'discipline.' This is 
to be obtained in intellectual training through mathematics; in 
moral training, through the control of desires by reason; and in 
physical training, through a ' hardening process. ' 

Locke has, therefore, often been viewed as the great advocate 
of the theory of formal discipline, according to which certain sub- 
jects yield a general power that may be applied in any direction, 
and should be studied by all. 

This doctrine has greatly influenced education, but in the late 
nineteenth century there was a decided reaction from it. Recently 
this extreme reaction has been modified, and a position taken with 
which Locke's real attitude would seem to be in harmony. 

Locke's Work and Its Various Classifications. — Be- 
cause of their relation to an important topic in modern 
education, the theories of John Locke (163 2-1 704) should 
receive further attention than they have yet been given. 
No writer on education has been more variously classified Often classed 
than he. We have already seen (p. 154) that the general reaUst, a sense 
tenor of his Thoughts concerning Education would lead naturalist.* 
us to group him vidth the early realistic movement. 
There are also elements in this work that would seem 
to place him with the sense realists, and many of his 
ideas proved so similar and suggestive to Rousseau's 

179 



i8o A student's history of education 

thought (see p. 213), that he has sometimes been 
classed among the advocates of naturahsm. But Locke's 
Thoughts, by which his educational position is often 
exclusively judged, were simply a set of practical sugges- 
tions for the education of a gentleman, written for a 
friend as advice in bringing up his son. They make clear 
his general sympathy with the current educational re- 
form, but do not bring out his main point of view. His 
central thought appears more definitely through the 
philosophical principles in his famous Essay concerning 
the Human Understanding, and through the intellectual 
training suggested in his other educational work. Conduct 
of the Understanding, which was originally an additional 
book and appHcation of the Essay. 

Locke's Disciplinary Theory in Intellectual Educa- 
tion. — Probably Locke's underlying thought as to the 
proper method of intellectual, moral, and physical train- 
But his under- jng may bcst be summed up in the word 'disciphne.' 
is 'discipline'. This cducational attitude is a natural corollary of his 
philosophic position, f In his Essay he holds that ideas 
are not born in one, but that all knowledge comes from 
experience. The mind, he declares, is like 'white paper, 
or wax,' upon which impressions from the outside world 
are made through our senses. When the ideas are once 
in mind, it is necessary to determine what they tell us 
in the way of truth. Hence, to train the mind to make 
proper discriminations, he declares in the Conduct of the 
Understanding that practice and discipline are necessary. 
To train the " Would you havc a man reason well, you must use him 
matic's and a to it bctimcs, cxcrcise his mind in observing the connec- 
sciences should tiou of idcas and following them in train." As to the 
means of effecting this mental discipline, Locke holds : 



FORMAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION l8l 

"Nothing does this better than mathematics, which 
therefore I think should be taught all those who have the 
time and opportunity, not so much to make them mathe- 
maticians as to make them reasonable creatures, that 
having got the way of reasoning, which that study neces- 
sarily brings the mind to, they might be able to transfer 
it to other parts of knowledge as they shall have occa- 
sion." Similarly, he advises a wide range of sciences, 
"to accustom our minds to all sorts of ideas and the 
proper ways of examining their habitudes and relations; 
not to make them perfect in any one of the sciences, but 
so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them 
capable of any, when they shall apply themselves to it." 
Disciplinary Attitude in Moral and Physical Train- 
ing. — The same disciplinary conception of education 
underlies Locke's ideals of moral training: "That a man For moral 

" training, the 

is able to deny himself his own desires, cross his own desires should 

... be guided by 

mcunations, and purely follow what reason directs as reason, 
best, tho' the appetite lean the other way. This power 
is to be got and improved by custom, made easy and 
familiar by an early practice." And even more definitely 
disciplinary is the well-known 'hardening process,' u • i 
which he recommends in physical training: "The first training, the 
thing to be taken care of is that children be not too process' 

111 J • i rr>i r should be used 

warmly clad or covered, winter or summer. The face, 
when we are born, is no less tender than any other part 
of the body. It is use alone hardens it, and makes it 
more able to endure the cold." He likewise advises that 
a boy's "feet be washed every day in cold water," that 
he "have his shoes so thin that they might leak and let 
in water," that he "play in the wind and sun without a 
hat," and that "his bed be hard." 



VI 



l82 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Evolved 
through the 
disappearance 
of the utili- 
tarian argu- 
ment. 



A general 
power afforded. 



Every one 
should take 
certain studies, 
regardless of 
interest. 



Origin, Significance, and Influence of the Theory of 
Formal Discipline. — This emphasis upon discipline in 
training of every sort — intellectual, moral, physical — has 
often caused Locke to be regarded as the first great ex- 
ponent of the educational doctrine of 'formal discipline.' 
That theory has been so widespread and important 
during the past two centuries as to require consideration 
here. During the Middle Ages and the early period of 
humanism Latin was not only of cultural, but of prac- 
tical utiHtarian value. It was the language of the 
Church and of diplomacy, and in it was locked up all the 
learning of the times. All guidance in science, literature, 
philosophy, and poUtics that received any consideration 
was couched in its terms. But with the decline of ec- 
clesiastical influence, the development of vernacular 
languages, and the scientific awakening in the seven- 
teenth century (see pp. 163 f.), this utilitarian argument 
for the study of Latin was largely swept away. Appeal 
was then made in behalf of the subject to the doctrine 
of 'formal discipline,' which was supported by the 
'faculty' psychology of Aristotle. It was held that the 
^tudy of Latin >ields results out of all proportion to the 
effort expended, and gives a general power that may be 
apphed in any direction. A similar claim was before 
long made for Greek and mathematics. Mathematics 
was declared to sharpen the 'faculty of reason,' while 
the classic languages were believed to improve the 
'faculty of memory.' Consequently, it gradually came 
to be argued by formal discipKnarians that every one 
should take these all-important studies, regardless of 
his interest, abiHty, or purpose in life, since he would 
thus best prepare himself for any field of labor. All who 



FORMAL DISCIPLINE IN /EDUCATION 1 83 

proved unfitted for these particular subjects have, there- 
fore, been supposed to be not qualified for the higher 
duties and responsibilities, and to be unworthy of con- 
sideration in higher education. 

This doctrine of formal discipline has had a tremen- 
dous effect upon each stage of education in practically 
every country and during every period until recently. 
Even the scientists and advocates of a variety of other Used by 

•^ scientists. 

subjects, instead of arguing for content value and par- 
ticular training, have made strenuous efforts to meet 
this argument by pointing out the formal discipHne in 
their own studies (see pp. 404 f.). Excellent examples of 
the effect of this theory upon educational institutions ^f^^^^'ions' of 
are found in the formal classicism of the English grammar various coun- 

tnes. 

and public schools and universities and of the German 
gymnasiums. While in the United States a newer and 
more flexible society has enabled changes to be more 
readily made, as late as the last decade of the nineteenth 
century, Greek, Latin, and mathematics largely made 
up the staples in many high schools, colleges, and uni- 
versities, and the husks of formal grammar were often 
defended in elementary education upon the score of 
formal discipline. 

Opposition to the Disciplinary Theory and More 
Recent Modification. — At the beginning of the twentieth 
century, however, with the abandonment of the ' faculty 
psychology' and the development of educational theory, 
a decided reaction from the doctrines of formal discipHne 
began among psychologists and common sense educa- 
tors. It is now almost universally conceded that specific, 
rather than general, power is developed by the various genera^ power, 
studies, and no student is held to be unworthy of educa- 



184 A student's history of education 

tion or impervious to culture, simply because he is not 
adapted to the classics or mathematics. In consequence, 
^°her'^than ^^^ contcnt of studics, rather than the process of acquisi- 
form, stressed, ^jon, has comc to be emphasized, the curriculum has 
everywhere been broadened, and the principle of the 
election of subjects largely recognized. It has, however, 
been felt within the last half dozen years that in react- 
ing from the old theory of formal discipline, educators 
went too far. While it is still held that emphasis must 
be laid upon the specific character of mental training. 
But some gen- there are some generalized powers and values to be ob- 

eralized powers . . t 1 1 

possible. tamed. It is realized that a general benefit can be 

derived from specific training in so far as the person 
trained has consciously wrought out in connection with 
the specific training a general concept of method, based 
upon the specific methods used in that training" (F. A. 
Hodge). Thus a student who has once realized the value 
of close reasoning through mathematical demonstrations 
is likely to develop a general concept of method, and can 
hardly be satisfied any longer with slovenly thinking in 
other fields; and the fine discriminations discovered in the 
classical authors, the balanced judgment used in his- 
torical method, and the accuracy required in the study 
of the sciences, may well be abstracted and tend to 
furnish a generalized ideal for other lines of endeavor. 
And Locke;s Locke's Real Position on Formal Discipline. — It 
of this kind, would seem as if this modified form of general power 
were all that Locke had in mind. He definitely con- 
cedes that "learning pages of Latin by heart, no more 
fits the memory for retention of anything else, than 
the graving of one sentence in lead makes it the more 
capable of retaining firmly any other characters." And 



FORMAL DISCIPLINE IN EDUCATION 185 

while he holds that the method of reasoning in mathe- 
matics can be transferred 'to other parts of knowledge,' 
he declares that men who are reasonable in some things 
are often very unreasonable in others, and "men who 
may reason well in one sort of matters to-day may not 
do so at all a year hence." The generalized benefits Generalized 

-^ ^ ^ ^ values of 

that students may obtain from mathematics are simply mathematics, 
that it "would show them the necessity there is, in reason- 
ing, to separate all distinct ideas, and see the habitudes 
that all those concerned in the present inquiry have to 
one another, and to lay by those which relate not to the 
proposition in hand and wholly to leave them out of 
the reckoning. This is that which in other subjects is 
absolutely requisite to^g'ust reasoning." Thus Locke 
appears to be rather in harmony with modern educa- 
tional theory than a thorough-going advocate of formal ^fH^/u °°* 
discipline. At any rate, it should be recognized that formalism of 

. public schools, 

he did not defend, but vigorously assailed, the gram- 
matical and Hnguistic grind in the English public schools. 
His attitude toward formal discipline seems to have 
sprung from his desire to root out the traditional and 
false, rather than to support the narrow humanistic 
curricula of the times. 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), pp. 305-311; 
and Great Educators (Macmillan, 1912), chap. VI; Monroe, Text- 
book (Macmillan, 1905), chap. IX. For a more extended account 
of Locke, read his Thoughts and Conduct, and Fowler, T., John 
Locke (Macmillan, 1901). The literature of formal discipline 
is most extensive and the subject is still under discussion; but 
a good summary of all written up to 191 1 is furnished in Heck, 



i86 A student's history of education 

W. H., Mental Discipline and Educational Values (John Lane, 
New York), and later articles can be found by consulting the 
index of The American Psychological Review. In a doctoral dis- 
sertation (University of Virginia), John Locke and Formal Disci- 
pline, Hodge, F. A., makes it clear that the common interpretation 
of Locke as a formal disciplinarian is unfair. The most typical 
of the earliest opposition to the disciplinary argument is probably 
found in Thorndike, E. L., Educational Psychology (Teachers 
College, New York, igio), chap. VIII; the sanest discussion of the 
possible transfer of ideals appears in Bagley, W. C, Educative 
Process (Macmillan, 1905), chap. XIII; and the reaction to the 
reaction is best portrayed by Angell, Pillsbury, and Judd in Edu- 
cational Review, vol. XXXVI, pp. 1-43. Lyans, C. K., in his ar- 
ticle upon Formal Discipline {Pedagogical Seminary, vol. XXI, 
pp. 343-393) makes a most careful analysis of the interpretations 
of the defenders and opponents of the theory, and gives a very 
thorough discussion of transfers. 



EDUCATION IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES 1 89 

by the Church and religious orders, with the assistance 
of private benevolence; but a few schools everywhere, 
and especially in Teutonic countries, were maintained 
by pre-Refonnation craft gilds, and so had a close con- 
nection with municipalities (see p. 92). Thus the 
American schools at first naturally adopted the religious 
conception of education and religious domination, but 
had some acquaintance with free schools and municipal 
management. , 

In addition to these characteristics, the religious re- 
formers, like Luther and Calvin, generally held to the Tendency 

' :> o ^ toward uni- 

idea that a system of schools should be supported, or versai educa- 
tion among 
at least estabHshed, by the state, and that all children Caivinists, but 

should have an opportunity to secure an education ideals among 
sufficient to make them familiar with the Scriptures. 
If people were to be guided by the word of God, they 
must all be able to read it. But this view of education 
was not held by those for whom, as in the Enghsh Church, 
the Reformation was not primarily a religious and theo- 
logical, but rather an ecclesiastical and political revolt. 
In Holland and Scotland, for example, where Calvinism 
prevailed, universal education was upheld by the mass 
of the people, but in France and England only a small 
minority, the Huguenots and Puritans respectively, 
adopted this attitude. Hence it happens that, wherever 
in America the influence of Puritanism, the Dutch Re- 
formed religion, Scotch Presbyterianism, or other forms 
of Calvinism was felt, the nucleus of public education 
appeared, while in the colonies where the Anglican com- 
munion was dominant, the aristocratic idea of educa- 
tion prevailed and training of the masses was neglected. 
However, even among the Caivinists, who held that 



1 9© A student's history of education 

elementary education should be universal, and that 
the State as well as the Church should hold itself respon- 
sible for its being furnished, the logical solution of the 
problem was not perceived for scores of years. In the 
Calvinistic colonies it was not at first believed that 
education should be the same in character for all or 
that the State should bear the expense through taxation. 
This distinctively American interpretation of public 
education did develop later, but in the beginning even 
the most advanced colonies to some extent placed the 
financial responsibihty upon the parent or guardian. 

Colonial School Organization: The Aristocratic Type 

in Virginia. — As a result of these general traditions and 

characteristics, there would seem to have been three 

chief types of school organization in the colonies. These 

typ^^ ^^^* were (i) the laissez /aire method, current in Virginia 

and the South; (2) the parochial organization of New 

Netherlands and the Middle Colonies in general; (3) the 

governmental activity in Massachusetts and most of 

^ the other New England colonies. We may profitably 

discuss these t3TDical organizations in order. Turning 

first to the aristocratic colonies of the South, we may 

seiecUvf "edu- select Virginia, the oldest of these provinces, as repre- 

herited from sentative of the type. That colony constituted the first 

England. attempt of England at reproducing herself in the New 

World, and here are found an order of society, form of 

government, established church, and distinction between 

classes, similar to those of the Mother Country. For some 

time there existed a sharp line of demarcation between 

the gentry, or landowning class, and the masses, which 

included the landless, indentured servants, and other 

dependents. In education, the colonists had brought 



EDUCATION IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES I9I 

with them the idea of a classical higher and secondary 
training for the upper classes in the semi-monastic type of 
university and the (Latin) grammar school (see pp. 1 20 f .) , 
and but little in the way of elementary education, ex- 
cept private 'dame! schools and the catechetical train- 
ing by the clergy. There were, in addition, the family 
'tutorial' education, both secondary and elementary, 
for the children of the wealthy, and evident attempts 
at perpetuating the old English industrial training 
through apprenticeship for orphans and children of the 
poor. But no such institution as a public elementary 
school was at first known. In consequence, the educa- SSnaf 
tional legislation in colonial Virginia is concerned mainly legislation, 
with (a) the organization of a college or university, (b) 
individual schools of secondary grade, and (c) appren- 
ticeship education for the poor. 

During the first quarter of a century most educational 
efforts in Virginia were in behalf of the foundation of ^S ^college 
an institution of higher learning, and were aided by the 
king, the Anglican bishops, and the London Company. 
By 1619 over £2000 and a grant of ten thousand acres 
of land had been obtained for a University at Henrico, 
but this rather indefinite plan was brought to a violent 
end by the Indian massacre pf 1622, and the funds were 
diverted to a school in the Bahamas. An even more 
fruitless endeavor to found a college was made in 1624 
by Sir Edwin Palmer upon an island in the Susquehanna. 
During this period also there was at least one abortive 
attempt to establish a school by collections and gifts, 
and during the second quarter century of the colony 
there were chartered a number of secondary schools, and secondary 

schools. 

endowed with bequests of land, money, cows, horses, 



192 A student's history of education 

slaves, or other property. These schools, however, 
were local, and resembled the endowed Latin schools 
of England, except that they may sometimes have been 
obliged by circumstances to include more or less ele- 
mentary instruction. In 1660 there was also a renewed 
attempt to establish by subscriptions a college and 
"free (secondary) school for the advance of learning, 
education of youth, supply of the ministry and promo- 
tion of piety." But none of the efforts at founding 
schools could have been very successful, for, a decade 
later, when interrogated as to what kind of education 
existed in the colonies. Governor Berkeley made his 
famous reply: *'The same course that is taken in England 
out of towns; every man according to his ability instruct- 
ing his children. ... I thank God there are no free 
schools, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred 
years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy 
and sects into the world." 

However, despite these biased remarks of the testy 
governor, by 1692 the constant efforts to obtain an 
institution of learning were finally rewarded. Through 
the management of the Reverend James Blair, D. D., 
the bishop's commissary in Virginia, a charter for the 
College of William and Mary, a gift of £2000 and of 
twenty thousand acres of land, and the right to certain 
colonial taxes were obtained from the king, and large 
donations were made by the planters and additional 
support provided by the assembly. In fact, the college 
was mimificently endowed for the times, and it did a 
great work in training the greatest scholars, statesmen, 
judges, mihtary officers, and other leaders during the 
struggle for independence. Moreover, 'free' schools 



EDUCATION IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES 1 93 

now greatly increased in number and their courses were 
much improved. But education was throughout this Apprenticeship 
early period regarded as a special privilege, and the the poor, 
masses were mostly employed in making tobacco, and 
other manual pursuits. For the sons of these people 
the only educational legislation was that provided be- 
tween 1643 and 1748 in various acts concerning the in- 
dustrial training of the poor, apprentices, wards, and 
orphans. In keeping with English precedents, these 
children were taught a trade by the masters to whom 
they were indentured, or trained in the flax-house es- 
tabhshed by pubHc funds at James City. Thus, by 
the middle of the eighteenth century a fair provision 
of secondary and higher education had been voluntarily 
made in various locaHties, but as yet no real interest 
m common schools had been shown by the responsible 
classes in Virginia. Education was there predominantly 
' selective ' in character. 

The Parochial Schools in New Netherlands. — A 
second type of colonial organization of education appears 
in the New Netherlands, as the country between the 
Delaware and Connecticut rivers was called during the 
period of Dutch control (1621-1674). In contrast to 
the laissez faire attitude of Virginia, the foundation 
of schools was parochial. Instead of the chance endow- 
ment of schools wherever the benefactors happened 
to be located, a school was founded in connection with 
every church. This arrangement grew out of the Cal- Calvinistic 

, , , . . . conception of 

vinistic conception of universal education, which formed universal edu- 

• 1 r ^ • 1 T • • Tx II 11- cation, as in 

an essential part of the social traditions in Holland during Holland, 
the seventeenth century. Long before the Dutch came 
to America, the parochial school, as a means of preserv- 



194 A student's history of education 

ing the Reformed faith, had become an indispensable 
part of church organization. But the Dutch state also 
had concerned itself with the faciHties for education. 
The Reformed Dutch Church was granted the right to 
examine teachers, enforce subscription to the creed, and, 
in the case of the elementary schools at least, largely 
determine the appointments, but the legal support and 
control of education were vested in the civil authorities. 
Hence there early arose in New Amsterdam and the 
villages of New Netherlands a parochial school system 
and a distribution of control between Church and State 
pr^a'yers^" Re- vcry similar to that in Holland. Besides the ordinary 
a°™eu as'eie-'^' elementary branches, these parochial schools of the New 
branches Netherlands taught the * true prindples of Christian 

taught. religion,' and the catechism and prayers of the Reformed 

Church. Thus the Dutch school differed from those 
in the Anglican colonies of the South, which stressed 
secondary education, in being chiefly elementary, al- 
though some attempt at conducting a Latin or ' grammar ' 
(see p. 120) school was also made in New Amsterdam 
from 1652 on. However, after the English took perma- 
nent possession of New York (1674), the parochial 
school of the city was limited to the support of the Re- 
formed Church, and, as a result of its long refusal to 
adopt the English language, its possible influence toward 
the realization of universal education was completely 
But, with Eng- lost. While the Dutch schools of the villages generally 

lish occupa- . , , . . , , p i i i 

tion, replaced rctamed the jomt control and support 01 the local court 

o^ganizadon."^* and church, with a constantly increasing domination of 

the former, as a whole the English occupation of New 

York would seem to have set public educat.on back 

about a hundred years. At any rate, by the eighteenth 



EDUCATION IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES 1 95 

century colonial New York seems to have fallen into 
the same laissez fairc support of education that prevailed 
in the Southern colonies. The policy of universal educa- 
tion by means of parochial schools no longer existed. 

Sectarian Organization of Schools in Pennsylvania. — 
As a colony, Pennsylvania developed a church school 
organization, similar to that of the New Netherlands, 
except that it was carried on in connection with a num- 
ber of creeds, and that the municipality was seldom a 
coordinate factor. Pennsylvania was more heterogeneous ^°^^ ^^«^*? f°<^ 

•^ ° the muma- 

in population than New York, as the tolerant attitude Polity not 

. coordinated. 

of the Quaker government had attracted a large vanety 
of German sects, Swedes, Dutch, English, Welsh, and 
Scotch and Irish Presbyterians, and each was devoted 
to its own denominational schools. Early in the eight- 
eenth century all Protestant religious bodies were au- 
thorized by statute to conduct schools and to receive 
bequests and hold land for their support. Even before 
this the Friends had started the 'Penn Charter School,' Friends, 
which, while itself a secondary school, soon established 
elementary schools as branches throughout the city 
upon various arrangements. In keeping with the con- 
clusions of various 'Yearly Meetings' (1722, 1746, etc.), 
the Friends also provided elementary, and to some ex- 
tent secondary, schools in close proximity to all meeting- 
houses throughout the colony. Similarly, the Lutheran Lutherans, 
congregations, for example, each set up a school along- 
side of the church as early as possible. Likewise the 
Mennonites included in their system the famous schools Mennonites, 
of Christopher Dock, who in 1750 produced the first 
elaborate educational treatise in America. There was 
also some attempt at 'grammar' schools (see p. 120) 



196 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



or secondary education, especially in the case of the 
well-known Moravian institutions at Bethlehem, Naz- 
areth, and Lititz, and the Presbyterian Log College 
at Neshaminy, which became the cradle of Princeton, 
Washington and Jefferson, Hampden-Sidney, and Union 
Colleges. 

A somewhat broader spirit was manifest in the vol- 
untary ' neighborhood ' schools of Western Pennsylvania 
and elsewhere, in the attempts at universal education of 
the Connecticut colonists in the Wyoming Valley, and in 
the 'academy' (see p. 159) set up at Philadelphia through 
Franklin, to train pubhc men and teachers, and fuse the 
various nations in a common citizenship. But, as a 
whole, parochial schools exerted the greatest influence in 
the colony of Pennsylvania. 

Town Schools in Massachusetts. — The third type of 
colonial school organization appeared first in Massachu- 
setts. As compared with the laissez faire and the paro- 
chial methods, governmental activity here prevailed. 
Accordingly, Massachusetts may be said to have inaugu- 
rated the first real system of pubhc education in Amer- 
ica. The character of the schools in this colony developed 
from its peculiar form of society and government. It 
was democratic, concentrated, and homogeneous, as 
geneous society compared with the cosmopolitan and sectarian social 
ernmentai ac- structure in the Middle colonies, or the class distinctions 
'^' ^" and scattered population of the South. While there 

were some servants and dependents in the Massachusetts 
Bay Colony and a distinction was made between 'free- 
men' and others, there were at no time rival elements 
that were unable to combine. The settlements were 
not a mere confederation, but the blending of all elements 



EDUCATION IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES 1 97 

into a single organism, where the individuality of each 
was merged in a new social whole. This condition was 
a result of the radical ingrained religious conviction 
that every one was a child of God, capable of becoming 
a vital and useful member of society, and that the com- 
munity was obHgated to give him training to that end 
in the home, the church, and the school. 

Out of this Calvinistic attitude sprang a spirit of co- 
operation and helpfulness, a general participation of all 
townsmen in local government, and the Massachusetts 
type of school organization. Common schools seem to 
have been supported in most towns from the first by vol- 
untary or compulsory subscriptions, and before the close 
of the first quarter of a century there had been estab- 
lished by the colony at large an educational system in 
which every citizen had a working share. Because of 
this inclusiveness and unity in matters theological, the 
schools, while reHgious and moral, could hardly be con- \ 

sidered sectarian. The first educational act of the colony, '^f Sr~ 
passed in 1642, was similar to the old EngHsh appren- Acts of 164a 
ticeship law m its provision for industrial education, 
and, while it was broadened so as to include some Hterary 

elements and a rate to procure materials was estab-^ 

lished, no school is mentioned in it. But in 1647 each'*'^^ 1647;^ 
town of fifty famihes was required, under a penalty of^ ■^ 
£5, to maintain an elementary school (Fig. 22), and every 
one of a hundred famihes a (Latin) 'gramma^' (Fig. 23) 
school. These schools might be supported in part by 
tuition fees, as well as by the town rate, and the obhga- 
tion seems to have still rested on the parents to see that 
the children did ' resort ' to the school, but the germs of 
the present conunon school system in the United States 



198 A student's history of education 

appear in the educational activity of the legislature in 
colonial Massachusetts. The 'grammar' schools were to 
prepare boys for Harvard College (Fig. 24), which had 
been founded in 1636. 

Education in the Other Colonies. — In general, the 

organization of education in the remaining nine colonies 

can be classed under one of the three types, described 

above, but there are various modifications and some 

exceptions to be noted. The laissez /aire foundation 

of schools and colleges during the colonial period, which 

was evident in Virginia, seems to be characteristic of 

the four other colonies of the South. But the problems 

were in every case a Uttle different, and in each there 

in°Ma^1andL ^ Were variations in development. Maryland, for example, 

while mainly following the same random foundation of 

schools as Virginia, also seriously endeavored (1696) 

to support schools in every county by a general colonial 

kTsouth'^ °°^^ t^^- South Carolina Ukewise made an unsuccessful 

Carolina. attempt (i 722) at establishing a county system of schools, 

and, a decade before, it undertook to subsidize a school 

finanSd by ^^ ^^ch parish. Georgia, on the other hand, until the 

parliament. Revolution, had its entire budget, including the items 

for education, financed by the EngHsh parliament. 

Democratic ^nd North Carolina, through a large number of Irish 

tendenaes m j o o 

North Caro- and Scotch Presbyterians, German Protestants, and 

una. . . ^ 

other immigrants, mostly from Pennsylvania, after 1728 
began to break away from the aristocratic policy. 

Moreover, after the permanent occupation (1674) 
by the English, New York went over to the laissez /aire 
plan (see p. 194). And, although in the remaining 
'middle' colonies, New Jersey and Delaware, some- 
thing was accomplished by the parochial schools of the 






t 



nBbMV 




Fig. 24. — The buildings of Harvard Co 

1675, 1699, anc 



EDUCATION IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES 1 99 

various sects, much of the school organization there was Random or- 

' " ganization in 

laissez /aire. Likewise, Rhode Island, dominated by a ^.^^ ^ork and 

, . ' ' •' Rhode Island. 

fanatical devotion to freedom in thought and speech, 
failed throughout colonial days to pass any general regu- 
lations on education, like those of Massachusetts, and 
followed more closely the random organization of schools 
in Virginia. But the other New England colonies, 
Connecticut and New Hampshire, when it separated 
from Massachusetts, tended to provide schools after 
the Massachusetts plan. The Hartford colony of Con- Governmental 

. , 1 , . activity in 

necticut m its statutes of 1650 copied almost verbatim New England, 
the phraseology used by Massachusetts in the estab- 
lishment of schools. It remains for later chapters to 
show how the practices suggested by this type of organi- 
zation have eventually overcome those of the other two, 
for that did not come to pass until after the colonial 
period. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, History of Education in Modern Times (Macmillan, 
1913), chap, iv; Clews, Elsie W., affords primary source material 
in Educational Legislation and Administration of the Colonial Gov- 
ernments (Columbia University, Department of Philosophy and 
Psychology, No. 6). The interpretation of educational organiza- 
tion in Colonial Schools used in this chapter is furnished by Monroe 
and Kilpatrick in the Monroe Cyclopcedia of Education (Mac- 
millan, 1910-14). For conditions in the various colonies, consult 
Dexter, E. G., History of Education in the United States (Macmil- 
lan, 1904), chaps. I-VI; Jackson, G. L., The Development of School 
Support in Colonial Massachusetts (Columbia University, Teachers 
College Contributions, No. 25, 1909); Kilpatrick, W. H., The 
Dutch Schools of New Netherland (Bulletin, U. S. Bureau of Educa- 
tion, 191 2); McCrady, E., Education in South Carolina (Collec- 
tions of the Historical Society of South Carolina, vol. IV) ; Smith, 



2CX> A student's HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

C. L., History of Education in North Carolina (U. S. Bureau of 
Education, Circular of Information, no. 2, 1894); Steiner, B. C, 
History of Education in Connecticut (U. S. Bureau of Education, 
Circular of Information, no. 2, 1893) and History of Education in 
Maryland (U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 
no. 2, 1894), chaps. I-IV; Stockwell, T. B., History of Public Edu- 
cation in Rhode Island (Providence Press Co., Providence, 1876), 
pp. 281-404; and Wickersham, J. P., History of Education in Penn- 
sylvania (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1886), chaps. I-XII. 



PART IV 
MODERN TIMES 



CHAPTER XVIII 

GROWTH OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL IN EDUCATION 

OUTLINE 

During the eighteenth century, there appeared the climax to the 
revolt against absolutism. 

This movement was directed against repression of intellect in 
the first half of the century, and against repression of political 
rights in the second half. The former phase, through Voltaire, 
made reason the basis of society and education, but introduced the 
tyranny of an intellectual few; the latter, through Rousseau, pro- 
moted an emotionalism and 'naturalism' that were in keeping 
with the sentiments of the times. 

The early treatises of Rousseau advocated a complete return to 
nature, but his later works somewhat modified this attitude. 

The Revolt from Absolutism. — The ideal of univer- 
sahty and of state control in the education of America 
and other countries was greatly assisted by the climax 
to the general revolt against absolutism and ecclesias- 
ticism that appeared in the eighteenth century. Dur- 
ing this period of time most strenuous efforts were 
made to interpret life from a more reasonable and 
natural point of view and to overthrow all customs and 
institutions that did not square with these tests. This ^, . , 

^ , , The eighteenth 

century marked the climax of the rebellion against au- century 

1 . . r 1 • !• • 1 1 marked the 

thority and against the enslavement of the mdividual climax of the 
that had been manifesting itself in one form or another against the 
from the close of the Middle Ages. One revival after thebdividuaL 

203 



204 A student's history of education 

another — the Renaissance, the Reformation, realism, 
Puritanism, Pietism — had burst forth only to fade away 
or harden into a new formahsm and authoritative stand- 
ard. Yet with each effort something was really accom- 
plished for freedom and progress, and the way was paved 
for the seemingly abrupt break from tradition that ap- 
pears to mark the period roughly included in the eight- 
eenth century. At this point despotism and ecclesias- 
ticism were becoming thoroughly intolerable, and the 
individual tended more and more to assert his right to 
be an end in himself. At times all institutional barriers 
were swept aside, and in the French Revolution destruc- 
tion went to an extreme. The logical consequence of 
these movements would have been complete social dis- 
integration, had not the nineteenth century happily 
made conscious efforts to justify the eighteenth, and 
bring out the positions that were only implied in the 
negations of the latter. Thus the revolutionary tenden- 
cies and destruction of absolutism in the eighteenth cen- 
tury led to evolutionary movements and the construc- 
tion of democracy in the nineteenth. 

The Two Epochs in the Eighteenth Century. — But 
this revolt of the eighteenth century from absolutism in 
poHtics, religion, and thought falls naturally into two 
parts. During the first half of the century the move- 
The revolt ment was directed against repression in theology and 
sion (i) of in- intellect, and during the second half against repression 
(2) of political in poUtics and the rights of man. The former tendency 
"^ ^" appears in the rationalism and skepticism of such men 

as Voltaire and the 'encyclopedists,' while the latter 
becomes evident chiefly in the emotionalism and 'nat- 
uralism' of Rousseau. Although these aspects of the 



GROWTH OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL IN EDUCATION 205 

revolutionary movement somewhat overlapped each 
other and had certain features in common, they should 
be clearly distinguished. The one prepared the way for 
the other by seeking to destroy existing abuses, especially 
of the Church, by the application of reason, but it gave 
no ear to the claims of the masses, and sought merely to 
replace the traditionaHsm of the clergy and monarch 
with the tyranny of an intellectual few. In distinction 
to this rule of 'reason,' 'naturahsm' declared that the 
intellect could not always be trusted as the proper moni- 
tor, but that conduct could better be guided by the 
emotions as the true expression of nature. It opposed 
the control of intellectual aristocracy and demanded 
rights for the common man. 

Voltaire and the Encyclopedists. — The rationalistic 
and scientific tendency was chiefly developed by Diderot, 
Voltaire, Condillac, D'Alembert, and others interested 
in the production of the French Encyclopedie. Of all 
these 'encyclopedists' the most keen and brilliant was 
Voltaire (1694-1778), who may well serve as' the type of 
the whole movement. With matchless wit and Hterary 
skill, in a remarkable range of poems, epistles, epigrams, 
and other writings, he championed reason against the Championed 

, I . . reason against 

traditional institutions of State and Church. His chief traditions. 
object of attack was the powerful Roman Catholic 
Church, which seemed to him to stand seriously in the 
way of all liberty, individuaHty, and progress, and the 
slogan with which he often closed his letters was, — 
"crush the infamous thing." The Protestant behefs he 
likewise condemned as hysterical and irrational. While 
an exile in England, as the result of a quarrel with a mem- 
ber of the nobility, he became acquainted with the work 



2o6 A student's history of education 

of Newton, Harvey, Bacon, Locke, and others (see 
and undertook pp. 164 f,), and Undertook to transplant the English 
English scien- scientific movement to France, and make it the basis of 

tific movement. , . . . ,. . 

a new regime m society, religion, and education. 

The other rationalistic writers had similar doctrines 
and purposes, and, although details of their ideas are 
hardly worthy of consideration here, most of them pro- 
duced treatises upon education. In these they freely 
criticised the traditional school systems, and proposed 
education™^ °* new theories of organization, content, and method, which 
must later have assisted to demolish the existing theory 
and practice in France. . Thus rationalism sought to 
destroy despotism and superstition, and to establish 
in their place freedom in action, social justice, and reli- 
gious toleration. But in casting away the old, it swung 
to the opposite extreme and often degenerated into 
skepticism, anarchy, and license. In their fight against 
Sto^skeptfdsm ^^^spotic ccclesiasticism, the rationaUsts often failed to 
and license. distinguish it from Christianity, and they opposed the 
Church because it was irrational rather than because it 
was not sincere. They felt that it might have a mission 
with the masses who were too dull and uneducated to be 
able to reason. So while rationalism wielded a mighty 
weapon against the fettering of the human intellect, it 
cared little about improving the condition of the lower 
classes, who were sunk in poverty and ignorance, and 
were universally oppressed. 

Rousseau and His Times. — In opposition to this in- 
tellectuahstic and rationahstic attitude, Jean Jacques 
Rousseau (171 2- 177 8) developed his emotionahsm and 
'naturalism.' The social and educational positions of 
this reformer find a ready explanation in his antecedents 



GROWTH OF THE DEMOCRATIC HDEAL IN EDUCATION 207 

and career. From his father he inherited a mercurial 

temperament, love of pleasure, and irresponsibility, and 

from his mother a morbid and emotional disposition. 

His tendency toward sentimentalism, idleness, and want and^i^n°t*S^" 

of control was also strengthened by the indulgent aunt control. 

that brought him up, and by low companions during his 

trade apprenticeships in the city of Geneva. At sixteen 

he ran away from the city, and spent several years in 

vagrancy, menial service, and dissoluteness. A love of Love of nature. 

nature was impressed upon him by the wonderful scenery 

of the country in which he spent his boyhood and his 

years of wandering. He also learned to sympathize with v^oth^poon 

the poor and oppressed, whose condition was at this 

time forced upon his attention. He received some spo- Sporadic 

^ • • J education. 

radic instruction, but his education was maccurate and 
unsystematic. 

At twenty-nine Rousseau settled down in Paris, but 
his days of vagabondage had left an ineffaceable stamp 
upon him. His sensitiveness, impulsiveness, love of 
nature, and sympathy for the poor were ever afterward 
in evidence. These characteristics blended well with a JJth^fnchSi 
body of inchoate sentiments and vague longings of this t^^TCriSd °^ 
period. It was the day of Louis XV and royal absolutism, 
when affairs in the kingdom were controlled by a small 
clique of idle and extravagant courtiers. A most artifi- 
cial system of conduct had grown up in society. Under 
this veneer the degraded peasants were ground down by 
taxation and forced to minister to the pleasure of a vicious 
leisure class. But against this oppression there had 
gradually arisen an undefined spirit of protest and a 
desire to return to the original beneficent state of nature 
from which it was felt that man had departed. Hence 



2o8 A student's history of education 

it happened that Rousseau, emotional, uncontrolled, 
and half-trained, was destined to bring into conscious- 
ness and give voice to the revolutionary and naturalistic 
ideas and tendencies of the century. 

Rousseau's Works. — In .1750 he first crystallized this 
spirit of the age and resultant of his own experience in a 

His discourses, discourse on The Progress of the Arts and Sciences. In 
this he declared with much fervor and conviction, though 
rather illogically, that the existing oppression and cor- 
ruption of society were due to the advancement of civi- 
lization. Three years later he wrote his discourse on The 
Origin of Inequality among Men. Here again he held 
that the physical and intellectual inequalities of nature 
which existed in primitive society were scarcely notice- 
able, but that, with the growth of civilization, most 
oppressive distinctions arose. This point of view in a 
somewhat modified form he continued in his remarkable 

New Heloise, romance. The New Heloise, published in 1759, and three 
years afterward in his influential essay on political ethics, 

Soctd Contract, ]j^nown as the Social Contract, and in that most revolu- 

andEmtie. tionary treatise on education, the Entile. The New 
Heloise commends as much of primitive conditions as 
the crystallized institutions of society will permit. In 
the Social Contract, Rousseau also finds the ideal state, 
not in that of nature, but in a society managed by the 
people, where simplicity and natural wants control, and 
aristocracy and artificiality do not exist. But the work 
that has made the name of Rousseau famous is the 
Emile. This, while an outgrowth of his naturalism, 
assumes the modified position of the later works, and 
undertakes to show how education might minimize the 
drawbacks of civilization and bring man as near to nature 



GROWTH OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL IN EDUCATION 209 

as possible. But the educational influence of the Emile 
has been so far-reaching that we must turn to another 
chapter to study the positions of Rousseau and the 
effects of naturahsm in education. 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, During the Transition (Macmillan, 1910), pp. 311-313; 
History of Education in Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), pp. i- 
10; and Great Educators (Macmillan, 191 2), pp. 77-85; Monroe, 
Text-book (Macmillan, 1905), pp. 533-542. See also Boyd, W., 
The Educational Theory of Rousseau (Longmans, Green, 191 1); 
Morley, J., Voltaire and Rousseau (Macmillan). 






CHAPTER XIX 

NATURALISM IN EDUCATION ^ 

OUTLINE 

Rousseau attempts in the Emile to outline a natural education 
from birth to manhood. The first book takes Emile from birth to 
five years of age, and deals with the training of physical activities; 
the second, from five to twelve, treats of body and sense training; 
the third, from twelve to fifteen, is concerned with intellectual 
education in the natural sciences; the fourth, from fifteen to 
twenty, outlines his social and moral development; and the fifth 
describes the parasitic training of the girl he is to marry. 

The Emile is often inconsistent, but brilliant and suggestive; 
and, while anti-social, the times demanded such a radical presenta- 
tion. Through it Rousseau became the progenitor of the social, 
scientific, and psychological movements in education. 

The first attempt to put the naturalism of Rousseau into actual 
practice was made by Basedow. He suggested that education 
should be practical in content and playful in method, and he pro- 
duced texts on his system, and started a school known as the 
'Philanthropinum.' He planned a broad course, and taught lan- 
guages through conversation, games, and drawing, and other 
subjects by natural methods. The Philanthropinum was at first 
successful, and this type of school grew rapidly, but it soon became 
a fad. 

The Influence of Rousseau's Naturalism, — The in- 
forced educa- fluencc of Rousseau's Emile upon education in all its 

tional thinking. ^ 

aspects has been tremendous. It is shown by the library 
of books since written to contradict, correct, or dissemi- 
nate his doctrines. During the quarter of a century fol- 

2IO 



The Emile 



NATURALISM IN EDUCATION 211 

lowing the publication of the Emile, probably more than 
twice as many books upon education were published as in 
the preceding three-quarters of a century. This epoch- 
making work forced a rich harvest of educational thinking 
for a century after its appearance, and has affected our 
ideas upon education from that day to this. 

Naturalistic Basis of the Emile. — In the Emile Rous- 
seau aims to replace the conventional and formal educa- 
tion of the day with a training that should be natural 
and spontaneous. Under the existing regime it was cus- 
tomary for boys and girls to be dressed like men and 
women of fashion (Fig. 25), and for education to be largely 
one of deportment and the dancing master. On the 
intellectual side, education was largely traditional and 
consisted chiefly of a training in Latin grammar, words, The subsUtu- 
and memoriter work. Rousseau scathingly criticises these urai education 
practices, and applies his naturalistic principles to an tionai type m 
imaginary pupil named Emile "from the moment of his ^°^^' 
birth up to the time when, having become a mature 
man, he will no longer need any other guide than him- 
self." He begins the work with a restatement of his basal 
principle that "everything is good as it comes from the 
hands of the Author of Nature; but everything degener- 
ates in the hands of man." After elaborating this, he 
shows that we are educated by " three kinds of teachers — 
nature, man, and things, and since the cooperation of 
the three educations is necessary for their perfection, it 
is to the one over which we have no control (i. e., nature) 
that we must direct the other two." Education must, 
therefore, conform to nature. 

The Five Books of the Emile. — Now the natural ob- 
jects, through which Emile is to be educated, remain the 



212 A student's HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

Emiie's im- same, but Emilc himself changes from time to time. In 

pulses ex- ' ■ , . 

amined and go far, therefore, as he is to be the guide of how he is to 

trained at dif- , . , . . , 

ferent periods: be educated in a natural environment, his impulses must 
be examined at different times in his Hfe. Hence the 
work is divided into five parts, four of which deal with 
Emiie's education in the stages of infancy, childhood, 
boyhood, and youth respectively, and the fifth with 
the training of the girl who is to become his wife. The 
characteristics of the different periods in the life of 
Emile are marked by the different kinds of things he 
desires. 

In the first book, which takes him from birth to five 
^h skaf'^c- years of age, his main desire is for physical activities, 
tivities. and he should, therefore, be placed under simple, free, 

and healthful conditions, which will enable him to make 
the most of these. He must be removed to the country, 
where he will be close to nature, and farthest from the 
contaminating influence of civilization. His growth and 
training must be as spontaneous as possible. He must 
have nothing to do with either medicine or doctors, 
"unless his Hfe is in evident danger; for then they can 
do nothing worse than kill him." His natural move- 
ments must not be restrained by caps, bands, or swad- 
dling clothes, and he should be nursed by his own mother. 
He should likewise be used to baths of all sorts of tem- 
perature. In fact, the child should not be forced into 
any fixed ways whatsoever, since with Rousseau, habit 
is necessarily something contrary to impulse and so 
unnatural. "The only habit," says he, "which the child 
should be allowed to form is to contract no habit what- 
soever." His playthings should be such simple products 
of nature as "branches with their fruits and flowers, or a 



NATURALISM IN EDUCATION 213 

poppy-head in which the seeds are heard to rattle." 
Language that is simple, plain, and hence natural, should 
be used with him, and he should not be hurried beyond 
nature in learning to talk. He should be restricted to a 
few words that express real thoughts for him. 

The education of Emile during infancy is thus to be 
'negative' and purely physical. The aim is simply to 
keep his instincts and impulses, which Rousseau holds 
to be good by nature, free from vice, and to afford him 
the natural activity he craves. Next, in the period of 
childhood, between the years of five and twelve, which ^b^n^^'^n' 
is treated in the second book, Emile desires most to development, 
exercise his legs and arms, and to touch, to see, and in 
other ways to sense things. This, therefore, is the time 
for training his Hmbs and senses. *'As all that enters 
the human understanding comes there through the 
senses, the first reason of man is a sensuous reason. Our 
first teachers of philosophy are our feet, our hands, and 
our eyes. ... In order to learn to think, we must 
then exercise our limbs, our senses, and our organs, 
which are the instruments of our intelhgence." To ob- 
tain this training, Emile is to wear short, loose, and 
scanty clothing, go bareheaded, and have the body 
inured to cold and heat, and be generally subjected to 
a 'hardening process' similar to that recommended by 
Locke (see p. i8i). He is to learn to swim, and prac- 
tice long and high jumps, leaping walls, and scaling 
rocks. But, what is more important, his eyes and ears 
are also to be exercised through natural problems in 
weighing, measuring, and estimating masses, heights, 
and distances. Drawing and constructive geometry are 
to be taught him, to render him more capable of observ- 



214 



A student's history of educatton 



no geography, 
history, or 
reading, 



ing accurately. His ear is to be rendered sensitive to 
harmony by learning to sing. 

This body and sense training should be the nearest 
approach to an intellectual training at this period. 
Rousseau condemns the usual unnatural practice of 
requiring pupils to learn so much before they have 
reached the proper years. In keeping with his 'nega- 
tive' education, he asks rhetorically: "Shall I venture to 
state at this point the most important, the most useful, 
rule of all education? It is not to gain time, but to lose 
it." During his childhood Emile is not to study geog- 
raphy, history, or languages, upon which pedagogues 
ordinarily depend to exhibit the attainments of their 
pupils, although these understand nothing of what they 
have memorized. "At the age of twelve, Emile will 
hardly know what a book is. But I shall be told it is 
very necessary that he know how to read. This I grant. 
It is necessary that he know how to read when reading 
is useful to him. Until then, it serves only to annoy 
him." 

Incidentally, however, in order to make Emile toler- 
able in society, for he cannot entirely escape it, he must 
though moral be given the idea of property and some ideas about con- 
through 'nat- duct. But this is simply because of practical necessity, 
quences.' and no moral education is to be given as such, for, "until 

he reaches the age of reason, he can form no idea of moral 
beings or social relations." He is to learn through 'nat- 
ural consequences ' until he arrives at the age for under- 
standing moral precepts. If he breaks the furniture or 
the windows, let him suffer the consequences that arise 
from his act. Do not preach to him or punish him for 
lying, but afterward affect not to beheve him even when 



NATURALISM IN EDUCATION 21$ 

he has spoken the truth. If he carelessly digs up the 
sprouting melons of the gardener, in order to plant beans 
for himself, let the gardener in turn uproot the beans, 
and thus cause him to learn the sacredness of property. 
As far as this moral training is given, then, it is to be 
indirect and incidental. 



;^ 



However, between twelve and fifteen, after the de- 
mands of the boy's physical activities and of his senses j°jgfi°^Jj°^7*' 
have somewhat abated, there comes "an interval when training 

. through cun- 

his faculties and powers are greater than his desires, osity concem- 
when he displays an insistent curiosity concerning nat- phenomena, 
ural phenomena and a constant appetite for rational 
knowledge. This period, which is dealt with in his third 
book, Rousseau declares to be intended by nature itself 
as the time for instruction. But as not much can be 
learned within three years, the boy is to study only those 
subjects which are useful and not incomprehensible and 
misleading, and so is limited to the natural sciences. 
Later in this third book, in order that Emile may in- 
formally learn the interdependence of men and may 
himself become economically independent, Rousseau 
adds industrial experience and the acquisition of cabinet- 
making to his training. The most effective method of 
instruction, Rousseau holds, comes through appealing 
to the curiosity and interest in investigation, which are 
so prominent in the boy at this time. He contrasts the 
current methods of teaching astronomy and geography 
by means of globes, maps, and other misleading repre- 
sentations, with the more natural plan of stimulating 
inquiry through observing the sun when rising and set- 
ting during the different seasons, and through problems 
concerning the topography of the neighborhood. Emile 



2i6 A student's history of education 

is taught to appreciate the value of these subjects by 
being lost in the forest, and endeavoring to find a way 
out. He learns the elements of electricity through meet- 
ing with a juggler, who attracts an artificial duck by 
means of a concealed magnet. He similarly discovers 
through experience the effect of cold and heat upon 
solids and liquids, and so comes to understand the ther- 
mometer and other instruments. Hence Rousseau feels 
that all knowledge of real value may be acquired most 
clearly and naturally without the use of rivalry or text- 
books. But he finds an exception to this irrational 
method in one book, Robinson Crusoe, "where all the 
natural needs of man are exhibited in a manner obvious 
to the mind of a child, and where the means of providing 
for these needs are successively developed with the same 
facihty." 

The fourth book takes Emile from the age of fifteen 
In youth, sex to twenty. At this period the sex interests appear and 
basis of ' should be properly guided and trained, especially as 

sodai training, they are the basis of social and moral relationships. 
Emile's first passion calls him into relations with his 
species, and he must now learn to live with others. "We 
have formed his body, his senses, and his intelligence; it 
remains to give him a heart." He is to become moral, 
affectionate, and religious. Here again Rousseau insists 
that the training is not to be accomplished by the formal 
method of precepts, but in a natural way by bringing 
the youth into contact with his fellowmen and appealing 
to his emotions. Emile is to visit infirmaries, hospitals, 
and prisons, and witness concrete examples of wretched- 
ness in all stages, although not so frequently as to become 
hardened. That this training may not render him cynical 



woman. 



NATURALISM IN EDUCATION 217 

or hypercritical, it should be corrected by the study of 
history, where one sees men simply as a spectator without 
feeling or passion. Further, in order to deliver Emile 
from vanity, so common during adolescence, he is to be 
exposed to flatterers, spendthrifts, and sharpers, and 
allowed to suffer the consequences. He may at this 
time also be guided in his conduct by the use of fables, 
for "by censuring the wrongdoer under an unknown 
mask, we instruct without offending him." 
Emile at length becomes a man, and a life companion The passive 

ii-i" A 11- ^°'i parasitic 

must be found for him. A search should be made for a education of 
suitable lady, but "in order to find her, we must know 
her." Accordingly, the last book of the Emile deals with 
the model Sophie and the education of woman. It is 
the weakest part of Rousseau's work. He entirely mis- 
interprets the nature of women, and does not allow them 
any individuality of their own, but considers them as 
simply supplementary to the nature of men. Like men, 
women should be given adequate bodily training, but 
rather for the sake of physical charms and of producing 
vigorous offspring than for their own development. 
Their instinctive love of pleasing through dress should 
be made of service by teaching them sewing, embroidery, 
lacework, and designing. They ought to be obedient 
and industrious, and they ought early to be brought 
under restraint. Girls should also be taught singing, 
dancing, and other accomplishments. They should be 
instructed dogmatically in reUgion, and in ethical mat- 
ters they should be largely guided by public opinion. 
A woman may not learn philosophy, art, or science, but 
she should study men. "She must learn to penetrate 
their feelings through their conversation, their actions. 



2i8 A student's history of education 

their looks, and their gestures, and know how to give 
them the feelings which are pleasing to her, without even 
seeming to think of them." 

Estimate of the Emile. — Such was Rousseau's notion 
of the natural individualistic education for a man and 
the passive and repressive training suitable for a woman, 
and of the happiness and prosperity that were bound to 
ensue. To make a fair estimate of the Emile and its 
Defects out- influence is not easy. It is necessary to put aside all of 

weighed by ... . 

merits. one's prejudices against the weak and offensive person- 

ality of the author, and to forget the inconsistencies and 
contradictions of the work itself. The Emile has always 
been accounted a work of great richness, power, and 
underlying wisdom, and each of its defects is more 
than balanced by a corresponding merit. Moreover, 
the most fundamental movements in modern educa- 
tional progress — sociological, scientific, and psycholog- 
ical — may be said to have germinated through the Emile. 
The Sociological Movements in Modem Education. — 
The most marked feature of the Rousselian education 
and the one most subject to criticism has been its ex- 

Reyolt from treme revolt against civilization and all social control. 
A state of nature is held to be the ideal condition, and 
all social relations are regarded as degenerate. The 
child is to be brought up in isolation by the laws of brute 
necessity and to have no social education until he is 
fifteen, when an impossible set of expedients for bringing 
him into touch with his fellows is devised. One should 
remember, however, that the times and the cause had 

but extreme need of just SO extreme a doctrine. Such radical in- 

doctnne . . , 

needed, dividuaHsm alouc could enable him to break the bondage 

to the past. By means of paradoxes and exaggerations 



and those who 



NATURALISM IN EDUCATION 219 

he was able to emphasize the crying need of a natural 
development of man, and to tear down the eflfete tradi- 
tions in educational organization, content, and methods. 
And many of the social movements in modern educa- 
tional organization and content were made possible and 
even suggested by him, after having thus cleared the 
ground. He held that all members of society should be 
trained industrially so as to contribute to their own sup- 
port and should be taught to be sympathetic and benevo- 
lent toward their fellows. Thus through him education 
has been more closely related to human welfare. The in- fonowed"Rous^ 
dustrial work of Pestalozzi and Fellenberg, the moral aim IH^J ^^^^^ 
of education held by Herbart, the ' social participation ' in ^'^^^'^es. 
the practice of Froebel, and the present-day emphasis 
upon vocational education, moral instruction, and train- 
ing of defectives and of other extreme variations, alike 
find some of their roots in the Emile. In fact, the fallacy 
involved in Rousseau's isolated education is too palpable 
to mislead anyone, and those who have best caught his 
spirit and endeavored to develop his practice have in all 
cases most insistently stressed social activities in the 
training of children and striven to make education lead 
to a closer and more sympathetic cooperation in society. 
-The Scientific Movement in Modern Education. — 
Moreover, since Rousseau repudiated all social traditions bc^oTsTbut^em- 
and accepted nature as his only guide, he was absolutely sg^^ationai'^ 
opposed to all book learning and exaggerated the value ^or^. 
of observation. He consequently neglected the past, 
and would have robbed the pupil of all the experience of 
his fellows and of those who had gone before. But he 
emphasized the use of natural objects in the curriculum 
and developed the details of nature study and observa- 
} 



220 A student's HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

tional work to an extent never previously undertaken. 
Partly as a result of this influence, schools and colleges 
have come to include in their course the study of physi- 
cal forces, natural environment, plants, and animals. 
Therein Rousseau not only anticipates somewhat the 
nature study and geography of Pestalozzi, Basedow, 
Salzmann, and Ritter, but, in a way, foreshadows the 
arguments of Spencer and Huxley, and the modern scien- 
tific movement in education. 
The Psychological Movements in Modem Educa- 
dvem^knowr *^°^' — ^ matter of even greater importance is Rous- 
edge of chii- scau's belief that education should be in accordance with 

dren, Rousseau 

saw the need the natural interests of the child. Although his knowl- 

of studying , . , , , 

them. edge of children was defective, and his recommendations 

were marred by unnatural breaks and filled with senti- 
mentality, he saw the need of studying the child as the 
only basis for education. In the Preface to the Emile 
he declares that "the wisest among us are engrossed in 
what the adult needs to know and fail to consider what 
children are able to apprehend. We are always looking 
for the man in the child, without thinking of what he is 
before he becomes a man. This is the study to which I 
have devoted myself, to the end that, even though my 
whole method may be chimerical and false, the reader 
may still profit by my observation." As a result of such 
appeals, the child has become the center of discussion in 
modern training. Despite his limitations and prejudices, 
this unnatural and neglectful parent stated many details 
of child development with much force and clearness and 
gave an impetus to later reformers. 

In this connection should especially be considered 
Rousseau's theory of stages of development. He makes 



NATURALISM IN EDUCATION 221 

a sharp division of the pupil's development into definite J^^ed'^matur^ 
periods that seem but little connected with one another, i°g' 
and prescribes a distinct education for each stage. 
This seems like a breach of the evolution of the individ- 
ual, and the reductio ad ahsurdum of such an atomic 
training is reached in his hope of rendering Emile warm- 
hearted and pious, after keeping him in the meshes of 
self-interest and doubt until he is fifteen. But, as in the 
case of his attitude toward society, Rousseau takes an 
extreme view, and he has thereby shown that there are 
characteristic differences at different stages in the child's 
life, and that only as the proper activities are provided 
for each stage will it reach maturity or perfection. He 
may, therefore, be credited to a great degree with the 
increasing tendency to cease from forcing upon children a 
fixed method of thinking, feeling, and acting, and for the 
gradual disappearance of the old ideas that a task is of 
educational value according as it is distasteful, and that 
real education consists in overcoming meaningless diflScul- 
ties. Curiosity and interest rather are to be used as -"' 
motives TDTBtttdy, and Rousseau therein points the way 
for the Herbartians. It is likewise due to him primarily 
that we have recognized the need of physical activities Physical ac- 

. . , . tivities and 

and sense training in the earlier development of the sense training, 
child as a foundation for its later growth and learning. 
To these recommendations may be traced much of the 
object teaching of Pestalozzianism and the motor expres- 
sion of Froebelianism. Thus Rousseau made a large 
contribution to educational method by showing the value 
of motivation, of creating problems, and of utilizing the 
senses and activities of the child, and may be regarded as 
the father of the psychological movements in modern 



222 A student's HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

education. He could not, however, have based his 
study of children and his advanced methods upon any 
real psychological foundation, for in his day the ' faculty ' 
psychology (see p. 182) absolutely prevailed. Instead of 
Sympathetic working out his methods from scientific principles, he 

understanding . " . , x x / 

of the child, ob tamed them, as did Pestalozzi afterwards, through his 
sympathetic understanding of the child and his abihty to 
place himself in the child's situation and see the world 
through the eyes of the child. 

The Spread of Rousseau's Doctrines. — Thus seeds of 
many modern developments in educational organization, 
method, and content, were sown by Rousseau, and he is 

Intellectual gggn to be the intellectual progenitor of Pestalozzi, 

progenitor of r o j 

modern re- Herbart, Froebel, Spencer, and many other modern 

formers, but ... . 

influence upon reformers. But his principles did not take immediate 
aediate. hold on the schools themselves, although their influence 

is manifest there as the nineteenth century advanced. 
In France they were apparent in the complaints and 
recommendations concerning schools in the lists of de- 
sired reforms {cahiers) that were issued by the various 
towns, and afterward clearly formed a basis for much of 
the legislation concerning the universal, free, and secular 
organization of educational institutions. In England, 
since there was no national system of schools, Httle direct 
impression was made upon educational practice. But in 
America this revolutionary thought would seem to have 
had much to do with causing the unrest that gradually 
resulted in upsetting the aristocratic and formal train- 
ing of the young and in secularizing and universalizing 
the pubHc school system. The first definite attempt, 
however, to put into actual practice the naturahstic 
education of Rousseau occurred in Germany through 



NATURALISM IN EDUCATION 223 

the writings of Basedow and the foundation of the fiJrou ^"Tase- 
'Philanthropinum,' and is of sufficient importance to ^o^. 
demand separate discussion. 

Development of Basedow's Educational Reforms. — 
Johann Bernhard Basedow (1723-1790) was by nature 
the very person to be captivated by Rousseau's doc- ^^*^^'f/jj ^ 
trines. He was talented, but erratic, unorthodox, tact- Rousseau's 

doctnnes. 

less, and irregular in life. He had been prepared at the 
University of Leipzig for the Lutheran ministry, but 
proved too heretical, and, giving up this vocation, be- 
came a tutor in Holstein to a Herr von Quaalen's chil- 
dren. With these aristocratic pupils he first developed 
methods of teaching through conversation and play con- 
nected with surrounding objects. A few years after this, 
in 1763, Basedow fell under the spell of Rousseau's Emile, 
which was most congenial to his methods of thinking 
and teaching, and turned all his energy toward educa- 
tional reform. As in the case of Rousseau with educa- 
tion in France, he realized that German education of the 
day was sadly in need of just such an antidote as ' nat- Education of 

-' ^ '' •' _ the day needed 

uralism' was calculated to furnish. The schoolrooms naturalism. 
were dismal and the work was unpleasant, physical train- 
ing was neglected, and the discipline was severe. Children 
were regarded as adults in miniature (Fig. 25), and were 
so treated both in their dress and their education. The 
current schooling consisted largely of instruction in 
artificial deportment. The study of classics composed 
the entire intellectual curriculum, and the methods were 
purely grammatical. As a result, suggestions made by 
Basedow for educational improvement attained as great 
popularity as his advanced theological propositions had 
received abuse. 



224 A student's HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

In 1768 by his Address on Schools and Studies, and their 
Influence on the Public Weal, he called generally upon 
princes, governments, ecclesiastics, and others in power, 
to assist him financially in certain definite educational 
reforms. In addition to suggesting that the schools be 
made nonsectarian and that public instruction be placed 
under a National Council of Education, he proposed that, 
in contrast to the formal and unattractive training of the 
day, education should be rendered practical in content 
'^Address °and^ ^^^ playful in method. To assist this reform, he planned 
production of ^-q bring out a work on elementary education, which he 

his text-books. ^ ... 

described in outline. Great interest in his proposals was 
shown throughout Europe by sovereigns, nobles, prom- 
inent men, and others desiring a nonsectarian and more 
effective education, and a subsidy of some ten thousand 
dollars was speedily raised, to enable him to perfect his 
plans. Six years later, Basedow completed his promised 
text-book, Elementarwerk, and the companion work for 
teachers and parents known as Methodenbuch. The 
Elementarwerk was accompanied by a volume containing 
ninety-six plates, which illustrated the subject-matter 
of the text, but were too large to be bound in with 
it. While in these manuals Basedow included many 
naturalistic ideas from Rousseau, he also embodied 
features from other reformers and even additions of his 
own. 
Elementarwerk Text-books and Other Works. — The Elementarwerk 
clearly combines many of the principles of Comenius as 
well as of Rousseau. It has, in fact, been often called 
'the Orbis Pictus (see p. 170) of the eighteenth century,' 
and Methoden- ^^^ givcs a knowledge of things and words in the form 
**^*- of a dialogue. The Methodenbuch, while not following 



NATURALISM IN EDUCATION 225 

Rousseau completely, contains many ideas concerning 
natural training that are suggestive of him. In this 
study of the nature of children, the book makes some 
advance upon the Rousselian doctrine by finding that 
they are especially interested in motion and noise, al- 
though Basedow would have shocked Rousseau by being 
so much under the control of tradition as to suggest using 
these interests in the teaching of Latin. Later, Basedow, 
together with Campe, Salzmann, and others of his 
followers, also produced a series of popular story books 
especially adapted to the character, interests, and needs 
of children. These works are all largely filled with books7of ""^ 
didactics, moralizing, religiosity, and scraps of scientific children, 
information. The best known of them is Robinson der 
Jiingere (Robinson Crusoe Junior), which was published 
by Campe in 1779. It seems to have been suggested by 
Rousseau's recommendation of Robinson Crusoe as a 
text-book, and in turn a generation later it became the 
model for Der Schweizerische Robinson (The Swiss Family 
Robinson) of Wyss, which has been so popular with 
children in America and elsewhere. 

Course and Methods of the Philanthropinum. — Eight 
years before this, however. Prince Leopold of Dessau had 
been induced to allow Basedow to found there a model 
school called the 'Philanthropinum,' which should 
embody that reformer's ideas. Leopold granted him a 
generous salary, and three years later gave him an equip- '^^' ^^^ 
ment of buildings, grounds, and endowment. At first 
Basedow had but three assistants, but later the number 
was considerably increased. The staff then included teachers, 
several very able men, such as Campe, formerly chap- 
lain at Potsdam, and Salzmann, who had been a professor 



226 



A student's history of education 



at Erfurt. The underlying principle of the Philanthro- 
pinum was 'everything according to nature.' The nat- 
ural instincts and interests of the children were only to 
be directed and not altogether suppressed. They were to 
and pupils. ]^q trained as children and not as adults, and the methods 
of learning were to be adapted to their stage of mentahty. 
That all of the customary fashion and unnaturalness 
might be eliminated, the boys were plainly dressed and 
their hair cut short. 
cadon'^^but^*^" While Universal education was believed in, and rich 
social distinc- ^nd poor alike were to be trained, the traditional idea 

tions. _ ^ _ 

still obtained that the natural education of the one class 
was for social activity and leadership, and of the other 
for teaching. Consequently, the wealthy boys were to 
spend six hours in school and two in manual labor, while 
those from families of small means labored six hours and 
studied two. Every one, however, was taught hand- 
icrafts, — carpentry, turning, planing, and threshing, as 
suggested in the third book of the Emile, and there were 
also physical exercises and games for all. On the in- 
tellectual side, while Latin was not neglected, considera- 
ble attention was paid to the vernacular and French. 
In keeping with the Elementarwerk, Basedow planned a 
wide objective and practical course very similar to that 
suggested by Comenius. It was to give some account of 
man, including bits of anthropology, anatomy, and 
physiology; of brute creation, especially the uses of 
domestic animals and their relation to industry; of trees 
and plants with their growth, culture, and products; of 
minerals and chemicals; of mathematical and physical 
instruments; and of trades, history, and commerce. He 
afterward admitted that he had overestimated the 



Industrial 
training 



and wide ob- 
jective course. 



NATURALISM IN EDUCATION 227 

amount of content that was possible for a child, and 
greatly abridged the material. 

The most striking characteristic of the school, however, 
was its recognition of child interests and the conse- 
quently improved methods. Languages were taught by [fu"^t^by^ con- 
speaking and then by reading, and grammar was not versation and 
brought in until late in the course. Facility in Latin was 
acquired through conversation, games, pictures, drawing, 
acting plays, and reading on practical and interesting sub- 
jects (Fig. 26). His instruction in arithmetic, geometry. Progressive 

• 11- f 11 methods in 

geography, physics, nature study, and history was fully other subjects, 
as progressive as that in languages, and, while continuing 
Rousseau's suggestions, seems to anticipate much of the 
'object teaching' of Pestalozzi. Arithmetic was taught 
by mental methods, geometry by drawing figures ac- 
curately and neatly, and geography by beginning with 
one's home and extending out into the neighborhood, the 
town, the country, and the continent. 

Influence of the Philanthropinum. — The attendance 
at the Philanthropinum was very small in the beginning, 
since the institution was regarded as an experiment, but 
eventually the number of pupils rose to more than fifty. 
Most visitors were greatly pleased with the school, p^^at expec- 
especially on account of the interested and alert appear- 
ance of the pupils. Kant declared that it meant "not a 
slow reform, but a quick revolution," although afterward 
he admitted that he had been too optimistic. While it 
may not have served well for older pupils, it was cer- 
tainly excellent in its stimulus to children under ten or stimulus for 

•' younger 

twelve, who can be reached by appeals to physical pup'Is- 
activities and the senses better than by books. 

Basedow, however, proved temperamentally unfit to 



228 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Salzmann, 



tutioni of^^*^ direct the institution. Joachim Heinrich Campe (1746- 
Campe, i8i8), who first Succeeded him, withdrew within a year to 

found a similar school at Hamburg. Institutions of the 
same type sprang up elsewhere, and some of them had a 
large influence upon education. The most striking and 
enduring of these schools was that established in 1 784 by 
Christian Gotthilf Salzmann (i 744-181 1) at Schnepfen- 
thal under the patronage of the royal family of Saxe- 
Gotha. The natural surroundings — mountains, valleys, 
lakes — were most favorable for the purpose of the insti- 
tution, and much attention was given to nature study, 
'lessons on things,' organized excursions, gardening, 
agricultural work, and care of domestic animals. Manual 
training, gymnastics, sports, informal moral and religious 
culture, and other features that anticipated later devel- 
opments in education also formed part of the course. 
During the decade before the establishment of Salz- 
mann's school, institutions embodying many of Base- 
dow's ideas were also opened at Rechahn and his other 
Brandenburg estates by Baron Eberhard von Rochow 
(i 734-1805). His schools were simply intended to im- 
prove the peasantry in their methods of farming and 
living, but, when this step toward universal education 
proved extraordinarily successful, Rochow advocated 
the adoption of a complete national system of schools on 
a nonsectarian basis. 

In 1793 the Philanthropinum at Dessau was closed 

permanently. Its teachers were scattered through 

Europe, and gave a great impulse to the new education. 

Becomes a fad, ^^ unfortunatc result of this popularity was that the 

piished'^s^e Philanthropinum became a fad, and schools with this 

good. name were opened everywhere in Germany by educa- 



and Rochow. 




Fig. 25. — The child as a miniature adult. 

(Reproduced from a French fashioa plate of 
the eighteenth century.) 




Fig. 20. — A naturalistic school. 
(Reproduced from the Elemcntarwerk of Basedow.) 



NATURALISM IN EDUCATION 229 

tional mountebanks. These teachers prostituted the 
system to their own ends, degraded the profession into 
a mere trade, and became the subject of much satire 
and ridicule. Nevertheless, the philanthropinic move- 
ment seems not to have been without good results, 
especially when we consider the educational conditions 
and the pedagogy of the times. It introduced many 
new ideas concerning methods and industrial training 
into all parts of France and Switzerland, as well as Ger- 
many, and these were carefully worked out by such re- 
formers as Pestalozzi, Froebel, and Herbart. In this 
way there were embodied in education the first positive 
results of Rousseau's 'naturaHsm.' 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. II; and 
Great Educators (Macmillan, 191 2), chaps. VII and VIII; Monroe, 
Text-hook (Macmillan, 1905), chap. X; Parker, S. C, History 0} 
Modern Elementary Education (Ginn, 191 2), chaps. VIII-X. The 
Emile (Translated by Payne; Appleton, 1895) should be read, and 
the Elementarwerk (Wiegandt, Leipzig, 1909) should be examined. 
A judicial description of the life and work of Rousseau is that by 
Morley, J. (Macmillan), while Davidson, T., furnishes an interest- 
ing interpretation of Rousseau and Education from Nature (Scrib- 
ner, 1902), but the standard treatise on The Educational Theory of 
Rousseau (Longmans, Green, 191 1) at present has been written 
by Boyd, W. A good brief account of Basedow: His Educational 
Work and Principles (Kellogg, New York, 1891) is afforded by 
Lang, O. H. See also Barnard, H., American Journal of Educa- 
tion, vol. V, pp. 487-520. 



CHAPTER XX 

t 

PfflLANTHUOPY IN EDUCATION 
OUTLINE 

In England, during the eighteenth century, there were numer- 
ous attempts to provide education for the poor through charity 
schools. The most important factor in maintaining these institu- 
tions was the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. 

Among other organizations, there sprang up a Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, which supported 
schools throughout the American colonies, except Virginia. Char- 
ity schools were also maintained in America by various other 
agencies. 

An attempt was likewise made by Raikes of Gloucester, Eng- 
land, to establish Sunday schools, for training the poor to read, and 
these institutions spread throughout the British Isles and America. 

A system of instruction through monitors, developed by Lan- 
caster and Bell, while formal and mechanical, furnished a sort of 
substitute for national education in England, and, spreading 
throughout the United States, paved the way for state support, 
and greatly improved the methods of teaching. 

'Infant schools' for poor children also grew up during the nine- 
teenth century in France, England, and the United States, and 
found a permanent place in the national systems, but they soon 
became formalized and mechanical. 

Philanthropic education proved a first step toward universal 
and national education. 

Reconstructive Tendencies of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury. — The eighteenth century cannot be regarded alto- 
gether as a period of revolution and destruction. While 

230 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 23 1 

such a characterization describes the prevailing ten- 
dencies, there were also social and educational forces 
that looked to evolution and reform rather than to a 
complete disintegration of society and a return to prim- 
itive Hving. Even in Rousseau, the arch-destroyer sdu'^and the' 
of traditions, we found many evidences of a recon- f^sfg°'^'^°^ 
struction along higher lines, and such a positive move- 
ment was decidedly obvious in Basedow, Salzmann, 
and other philanthropinists. But in England reforms 
were especially apparent. In the land of the Briton, 
progress is proverbially gradual, and sweeping vic- 
tories and Waterloo defeats in affairs of society and 
education are ahke unwonted. The French tendency 
to cut short the social and educational process and to 
substitute revolution for evolution is out of accord and especially 

m England. 

with the spirit across the English Channel. 

The Rise of Charity Schools in England. — And yet 
conditions in England at this time might well have 
incited people to revolution. Wages were low, employ- 
ment was irregular, and the laboring classes, who num- wretched con- 
bered fully one-sixth of the population, were clad in borh^^ class! 
rags, Hved in hovels, and often went hungry. Oppor- 
tunities for elementary education were rare. The few 
schools that remained after the Reformation had largely 
lost their endowments or had been perverted into second- 
ary institutions, and had suffered from incompetent 
and negligent masters and from the religious upheaval 
of the times. It was as a partial remedy for this situa- 
tion, that, toward the close of the seventeenth century, 
there sprang up a succession of 'charity schools,' in 
which children of the poor were not only taught, but 
boarded and sometimes provided with clothes, and the as remedy. 



232 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Foundation, 
management. 



books, 



teachers, 



and course. 



^ 



boys were prepared for apprenticeship and the girls for 
domestic service. Probably about one thousand schools 
upon this general philanthropic basis had been estab- 
lished in England and Wales by the middle of the eight- 
eenth century. Most of these had received substantial 
endowment, but numbers of them were maintained by 
private subscriptions. 

The Schools of the S. P. C. K. — A factor that was 
even more important in opening charity schools was the 
'Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge' 
(often abbreviated to S. P. C. K.). This society was 
founded in 1698 by Reverend Thomas Bray, D. D., and 
four other clergymen and philanthropists. As a rule, 
its schools were established, supported, and managed 
by local people, but the Society guaranteed their main- 
tenance, and assisted them from its own treasury when- 
ever a stringency in funds arose. The S. P. C. K. also 
inspected schools, and advised and encouraged the local 
managers, and furnished bibles, prayer books, and cate- 
chisms at the cheapest rates possible. It made stringent 
regulations of eligibility for its schoolmasters, requiring, 
in addition to the usual religious, moral, pedagogical, 
and age tests, that they be members of the Church of 
England and approved by the minister of the parish. 
Each master was expected to teach the children their 
catechism, and purge them of bad morals and manners, 
besides training them in reading, writing, and elementary 
arithmetic. The pupils were, moreover, clothed, boarded, 
and at times even lodged. 

The number of charity schools of the S. P. C. K, 
grew by leaps and bounds, and by the close of the first 
decade there were eighty-eight within a radius of ten 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 233 

miles of London. The gifts made had amounted to al- Development, 
most ten thousand pounds, and nearly one thousand 
boys and over four hundred girls had been sent out as 
apprentices. And before the middle of the eighteenth 
century the total number of these charity schools in 
England and Wales reached nearly two thousand, with 
about fifty thousand boys and girls in attendance. This 
increase in facilities for the education of the poor was 
not kindly received by many in the upper classes, who 
often felt that *' there is no need for any learning at all 
for the meanest ranks of mankind: their business is to 
labour, not to think." But the charity schools had also "^P^'Sy" ^^'^ 
many warm supporters, and Addison even beHeved that 
as a result of them there would be "few in the next 
generation who will not at least be able to write and 
read, and have not an early tincture of rehgion." The 
benefactions for these institutions continued to increase 
for nearly half a century, but by the middle of the eight- 
eenth century popular interest had waned. The sub- decadence, 
scriptions began to fall off, the system of inspection and 
the teaching became less effective, and the schools ceased 
to expand. Nevertheless, the S. P. C. K. had succeeded 
in impressing the Church of England with a sense of re- ^nd influence, 
sponsibihty for the estabhshment of a national school 
system upon a reUgious basis. Its schools were largely 
continued throughout the eighteenth century, and in 
most instances after 1811 were absorbed by the new 
educational organization of the English Church, the 
so-called 'National Society' (see p. 239). 

Other British Charity Schools. — These institutions of 
the Church of England society may be regarded as tj^ical 
of British charity schools in general. There were, how- 



234 A student's history of education 

Nonconformist ever, also a dozen well-known foundations by non- 
sc GO s. conformists, including the ' Gravel Lane School ' of 

Southwark, London, which was started over a decade 
before the S. P. C. K. was organized. And an interest- 
ing t>pe of philanthropic institution known as 'cir- 
' Circulating culating schools ' was founded in Wales. These schools 

1 1 ' 

simply aimed to teach pupils to read the Bible in 
Welsh, and when this had been accomplished in one 
neighborhood, the school was transferred to another. 
But a much more important organization was the off- 
shoot of the S. P. C. K., that arose chiefly to carry on 
charity schools in the American colonies. This associa- 
tion, the 'Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in 
tS^s*^ p^°G °^ Foreign Parts,' (commonly known as S. P. G.), was 
founded by Dr. Bray three years after the parent 
society, but no schools were estabhshed for several 
years. 
The Charity Schools of the S. P. G. — The first school 
s. p. G. school of the S. p. G. was opened in New York City in 1709 
City— under William Huddleston, who had been conducting 

a school of his own there. It was intended that the new 
school should follow the plan of the charity schools in 
England, but, while free tuition and free books were 
granted from the beginning, it was not until many years 
later that the means of clothing the children gratuitously 
■- was provided. Under different masters and with vary- 

ing fortunes, the school was supported by the society 
until 1783, when the United States had finally cut loose 
from the Mother Country and started on a career of 
its own. Meanwhile Trinity Church had come more 
and more to take the initiative in the endowment and 
support of the school, and since the withdrawal of the 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 235 

society from America the institution has been known as now 'Trinity 
'Trinity Church School.' School.' 

Schools of the same type were active throughout the 
colonies in the eighteenth century. We possess more 
or less complete accounts of these institutions in New 
York and all the other colonies, except Virginia, where ^'^^'' '^°^°^^ 
they were not believed to be needed. Except for size 
and local pecuharities, all of them closely resembled 
the school in New York City. The attendance ranged Attendance, 
from eighteen or twenty pupils to nearly four times 
that number. Girls were generally admitted, and occa- 
sionally equalled or exceeded the boys in number. As a 
rule, children of other denominations were received on ' 

the same terms as those of Church of England members, 
and at times nearly one-half the attendance was com- 
posed of dissenters, but often those outside the Church 
were given secondary consideration, or the catechism 
was so stressed by the school that the dissenting children 
were withdrawn and rival schools set up. The character 
of the course of study in these charity schools is further ^ookT' *°** 
indicated by the books furnished by the society. In 
packets of various sizes it sent over horn-books, primers, 
spellers, writing-paper and ink-horns, catechisms, psal- 
ters, prayer books, testaments, and bibles. There is 
also some evidence that secondary instruction was 
carried on intermittently in the various centers by the 
missionaries or by the schoolmasters in conjunction with 
their elementary work. 

Throughout its work in the American colonies the S. P. 
G. met with various forms of opposition. The dissenters, ^'^pS^'p^q*" 
Quakers, and others were often openly hostile through 
fear of the foundation of an established national church 



236 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



1 

r» 

I 

\ 

Its devotion 
and generosity, 

and influence 
upon universal 
education. 



Organization, 



course, and 



similar to that of England, and both sides displayed 
considerable sectarianism and bigotry. After 1750 the 
opposition to the society increased in bitterness and 
became more general, owing to the feeHng that its agents 
were supporting the king against the colonists. Yet 
its patronage of schools was most philanthropic and 
important for American education in the eighteenth 
century. While it insisted upon the interpretation of 
Christianity adopted by the Church of England, it 
stood first and foremost for the extension of rehgion 
and education to the virgin soil of America. It carried 
on its labors with devoted interest and showed great 
generosity in the maintenance of schools, and the support 
of schools in the colonies by the S. P. G. must have 
exerted some influence toward universal education. 

Charity Schools among the Pennsylvania Germans. — 
During the eighteenth century the efforts of the S. P. G. 
were supplemented by the formation of minor associa- 
tions and the establishment of other charity schools in 
various colonies. Perhaps the most noteworthy in- 
stance was the organization in 1753 of 'A Society for 
Propagating the Knowledge of God among the Ger- 
mans,' and the maintenance of schools among the sects 
of Pennsylvania. These schools were managed by a gen- 
eral colonial board of six trustees, who visited the schools 
annually and awarded prizes for English orations and 
attainments in civic and religious duties. The course of 
study included instruction in ''both the English and Ger- 
man languages; likewise in writing, keeping of common 
accounts, singing of psalms, and the true principles of the 
holy Protestant religion." Twenty-five schools were 
planned, but probably there were never more than half 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 237 

that number. The schools lasted only about a decade, as disappearance 

of S P K G 

the Germans soon came to feel that this English school- schools.' 
ing threatened their language, nationality, and institu- 
tions. 

The * Sunday School ' Movement in Great Britain. — 
A variety of charity school, quite different from those 
already mentioned, sprang up toward the close of the 
century under the name of 'Sunday Schools.' To over- 
come the prevailing ignorance, vice, and squalor in the 
manufacturing center of Gloucester, England, Robert Foundation, 
Raikes in 1780 set up a school in Sooty Alley for the 
instruction of children and adults in religion and the 
rudiments. Six months later he started a new school in 
Southgate street, and soon had other schools established. 
He paid his teachers a shilling each Sunday to train the 
children to read in the Bible, spell, and write. This 
charity education, meager as it was, was attacked by opposition, 
many of the upper classes, and was often viewed with 
suspicion by the recipients themselves. Yet the new 
movement had warm supporters among the nobility and gprea^*^' ^°*^ 
such reformers as Wesley, and the schools soon spread 
to London, and then throughout England, Wales, Ire- 
land, Scotland, and the Channel Islands. A Sunday 
School Society was founded in 1785, and within a dec- 
ade distributed nearly one hundred thousand spellers, 
twenty-five thousand testaments, and over five thousand 
bibles, and trained approximately sixty-five thousand 
pupils in one thousand schools. 

The * Sunday School ' Movement in the United 
States. — The Raikes system of Sunday instruction was 
also soon introduced in America. The first school was or- 

Individual 

ganized m 1786 by Bishop Asbury at the house of Thomas centers 



238 A student's history of education 

Crenshaw in Hanover County, Virginia, and within a 

quarter of a century a number of schools arose in various 

and permanent ^ities. Before long, permanent associations were also 

assoaations. °' '^ 

started to promote Sunday instruction. 'The First 
Day or Sunday School Society' was organized at Phila- 
delphia in 1 791, and during the first two decades of the 
nineteenth century a number of similar societies for 
secular instruction on Sunday were founded in New 
York, Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. In 1823 
these associations were all absorbed into a new and 
broader organization, known ever since as the 'American 
Sunday School Union.' At the start it published suitable 
reading-books, and furnished primers, spellers, testa- 
ments, and h3nTLn-books to needy Sunday schools at a 
reasonable rate. 

Value of the Instruction in * Sunday Schools.' — Both 
in Great Britain and the United States, however, the 
Sunday schools gradually tended to abandon their 
^epfred^'the* secular instruction and become purely religious. At 
v&rsal°educa ^^^ Same time the teachers came to serve without pay 
^o°- and to instruct less efficiently. And the value of the 

secular teaching was not large at the best, as the work 
was necessarily limited to a few hours once a week, 
Raikes and all others interested in these institutions 
recognized their inadequacy as a means of securing uni- 
versal education, and regarded them merely as auxiliary 
to a more complete system of instruction. But while a 
makeshift and by no means a final solution for national 
education, they performed a notable service for the 
times, and helped point the way to universal education. 
The Schools of the Two Monitorial Societies.^ — While 
^i philanthropic education started largely in the eighteenth 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 239 

century, some of the schools continued well into the 
nineteenth. This was especially the case with the 'moni- 
torial' system, started at Southwark in 1798. This dis- 
trict of London was thronged with barefoot and unkempt 
children; and Lancaster, the founder of the school, Lancaster 
undertook to educate as many as he could. His school- 
room was soon filled with a hundred or more pupils. In 
order to teach them all, he used the older pupils as 
assistants. He taught the lesson first to these 'moni- 
tors,' and they in turn imparted it to the others, who 
were divided into equal groups. Each monitor cared 
for a single group. The work was very successful from 
the first, but Lancaster, attempting to introduce schools 
of this kind throughout England, fell so recklessly into 
debt that an association had to be founded in 1808 to 
continue the work on a practical basis. Within half a 
dozen years Lancaster withdrew from the organiza- 
tion, but the association, under the name of the 'British andForei^*^* 
and Foreign Society,' continued to flourish and found ^°^^*y' 
new schools. 

So successful was the Lancasterian work that the 
Church of England, fearing its nonsectarian influence 
upon education, in 1811 organized 'The National So- 
ciety for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the 
Principles of the Established Church.' This long-named 
association was to conduct monitorial schools under the 
management of Doctor Andrew Bell, who had experi- Natiooai * * 
men ted with the system in India before Lancaster opened ^°°^^y- 
his school. Although they had formed no part of Bell's 
original methods, the Anglican catechism and prayer book 
were now taught dogmatically in the schools founded 
by the National Society. Bell proved an admirable 



240 A student's history of education 

director, and a healthy rivalry sprang up between the 
societies. 
Value of the Monitorial System in England. — The 

thif two"ys" plS'iis of the two Organizations were similar, but differed 

•^^s- somewhat in details. Both used monitors and taught 

writing by means of a desk covered with sand, but the 
system of Lancaster was animated by broader motives 
and had many more devices for teaching. It also insti- 
tuted company organization, drill, and precision, and 
developed a system of badges, offices, rewards, and 
punishments. Monitorial instruction, however, was not 

originJ^'^^ "° original with either Lancaster or Bell. It had long been 
used by the Hindus and others, although the work of 
the two societies brought it into prominence. It over- 

andmechani- emphasized repetition and recitation mechanics, and 
consisted of a formal drill rather than a method of in- 
struction. 
Yet the monitorial schools were productive of some 

Afforded sub- achievements. Most of them afforded a fair education in 

stitute for na- 
tional educa- the elementary school subjects and added some indus- 
trial and vocational training. They also did much to 
awaken the conscience of the Enghsh nation to the need 
of general education for the poor. The British and 
Foreign and the National Societies afforded a substitute, 
though a poor one, for national education in the days be- 
fore England was willing to pay for general education, 
and they became the avenues through which such appro- 
priations as the government did make were distributed. 
In 1833 the grant of £20,000, constituting the first gov- 
ernment aid to elementary education, was equally divided 
between the two societies (see p. 388), and this method of 
administration was continued as the annual grant was 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 24 1 

gradually increased, until the system of public education 
was established. Likewise, in 1839, £10,000 for normal 
instruction was voted to the societies, and was used 
by the British and Foreign for its Borough Road Train- Training col- 
ing College, and by the National for St. Mark's Train- 
ing College. These were followed by several other 
training institutions, established by each society through 
government aid. In 1870, when the 'board,' or public 
elementary, schools were at length founded, the schools 
of the British and Foreign Society, with their nonsec- Foreign^ 
tarian instruction, fused naturally with them; but the gJ^S, ^b^t 
institutions of the National Society, though transferred JJ^^'by^lhem-^ 
to school boards in a few cases, have generally come to selves. 
constitute by themselves a national system on a volun- 
tary basis. 

Results of the Monitorial System in the United 
States. — In the United States the monitorial system was 
introduced into New York City in 1806. The ' Society for 
the Establishment of a Free School,' after investigating 
the best methods in other cities and countries, decided 
to try the system of Lancaster (see p. 260). The method 
was likewise introduced into the charity schools of Phila- ^j ^jg^ j^y 
delphia (see p. 261). The monitorial system then spread New York and 
rapidly through New York, Pennsylvania, Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut, and other States. It is ahnost im- 
possible to trace the exact extent of this organization 
in the United States, but before long it seems to have af- 
fected nearly all cities of any size as far south as Augusta 
(Georgia), and west as far as Cincinnati. There are still 
traces of its influence throughout this region, — in Hart- 
ford, New Haven, Albany, Washington, and Baltimore, 
as well as in the places already mentioned (Figs. 27, 28, 



242 



A student's history of education 



Introduced 
into high 
schools and 
academies. 



and 29). In 1818 Lancaster himself was invited to 
America, and assisted in the monitorial schools of New 
York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia. A dozen years later 
the system began to be introduced generally into the high 
schools and academies. Through the ejfforts of Dr. John 
Griscom, who had been greatly pleased with the moni- 
torial high school of Dr. Pillans in Edinburgh, a similar 
institution was established in New York City in 1825, and 
the plan was soon adopted by a number of high schools in 
New York and neighboring states. Likewise, the state 
; systems of academies in Maryland and in Indiana, which 

became high schools after the Civil War, were organized 
on this basis. For two decades the monitorial remained 
the prevailing method in secondary education. Train- 
ing schools for teachers on the Lancasterian basis also 
became common. 

In fact, the monitorial system was destined to perform 
a great service for American education. At the time of 
its introduction, public and free schools were generally 
scSkciiities ^^ckuig, outside of New England, and the facilities that 
existed were meager and available during but a small 
portion of the year. In all parts of the country illiteracy 
was almost universal among children of the poor. This 
want of school opportunities was rendered more serious 
by the rapid growth of American cities. 'Free school 
societies,' like that in New York City, formed to relieve 
the situation, came to regard the system of Lancaster, 
because of its comparative inexpensiveness, as a godsend 
for their purpose. And when the people generally awoke 
to the crying need of public education, legislators also 
found monitorial schools the cheapest way out of the 
difi&culty, and the provision made for these schools 




Fig. 27. — A monitorial school, with three hundred pupils and but 

one teacher. 




Fig. 28. — Pupils reciting to monitors. 




Fig. 29. — Monitor inspecting slates. 



/ 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 243 

gradually opened the road to the ever increasing expen- 
ditures and taxation that had to come before satisfactory 
schools could be estabHshed. Moreover, the Lancas- 
terian schools were not only economical, but most effec- 
tive, when the educational conditions of the times are 
taken into consideration. Even in the cities, the one- 
room and one-teacher school was the prevailing type, 
and grading was practically unknown. The whole or- 
ganization and administration were shiftless and un- 
economical, and a great improvement was brought organizatbn^ 
about by the carefully planned and detailed methods of ^""^ ^^^^o^- 
Lancaster. The schools were made over through his 
definite mechanics of instruction, centralized manage- 
ment, well-trained teachers, improved apparatus, dis- 
cipline, hygiene, and other features. 

But while the monitorial methods met a great educa- 
tional emergency in the United States, they were clearly 
mechanical, inelastic, and without psychological founda- 
tion. Naturally their sway could not last long, and as Jhln^^jS- 
enlarged material resources enabled the people to make ^enUm-^*^"' 
greater appropriations for education, the obvious de- p^ved. 
fects of the monitorial system became more fully appre- 
ciated and brought about its abandonment. Before the 
middle of the century its work in America was ended, 
and it gave way to the more psychological conceptions 
of Pestalozzi and to those afterward formulated by 
Froebel and Herbart. 

The ' Infant Schools ' in France. — Another form of 
philanthropic education that came to be very influential 
during the nineteenth century and has eventually been 
merged in several national systems is that of the so-called 
'infant schools.' The first recorded instance of these 



244 



A student's history of education 



development 
in Paris; 



part of na- 
tional system 



institutions occurred late in the eighteenth century 
through the attempt of a young Lutheran pastor named 

^^gi"pi°8 with oberlin to give an informal training to the small children 
in all the villages of his rural charge in northeastern 
France. This type of training was copied in Paris as 
early as 1801, but did not amount to much until its 
revival through the influence of a similar development 
in England a quarter of a century later. It then rapidly 
expanded, and in 1833 was adopted as part of the French 
national system of education. In 1847 ^ normal school 
was founded to prepare directresses and inspectors for 
these institutions, and in 1881 they became known as 
'maternal schools,' and the present type of curriculum 
was adopted. Besides reading and writing, these 
schools have always included informal exercises in the 
mother tongue, drawing, knowledge of common things, 
the elements of geography and natural history, manual 
and physical exercises, and singing. 

The ' Infant Schools ' in England. — Quite independ- 
ently, though over a generation later than Oberlin, 

Owen at New Robert Owen opened his 'infant school' in 18 16 at New 

Lanark; ^ 

Lanark, Scotland. He was a philanthropic cotton- 
spinner, and wished to give the young children of his 
operatives a careful moral, physical, and intellectual 
training. From the age of three they were taught in 
this school for two or three years whatever was useful 
and within their understanding, and this instruction 
was combined with much singing, dancing, amusement, 
and out-of-door exercise. They were not "annoyed with 
books," but were taught about nature and common 
objects through maps, models, paintings, and famihar 
conversation, and their "curiosity was excited so as to 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 245 

ask questions concerning them." To afford this informal 
training, Owen secured a " poor simple-hearted weaver, 
named James Buchanan, who at first could scarcely 
read, write, or spell," but who, by following the instruc- 
tions of Owen Hterally, made a great success of the 
system. But when Buchanan, with the consent of Buchanan's 

•' ' _ school in 

Owen, had been transferred to London, to start a sim- London, 
ilar school for a group of peers and other distinguished 
philanthropists, his lack of intelligence reduced the 
training to a mere mechanical imitation of the procedure 
he had learned at New Lanark. Unfortunately, this 
London school became the model for Samuel Wilder- 
spin, who was destined to become the leading exponent 
of infant schools. The schools of Wilderspin, while ^^^^^^ ^^^^^ 
retaining some of the principles and devices of Owen, for wilder- 

° . ^P'"' — formal 

were much more formal and mechanical. He thought and me- 
chanical, 
too highly of 'books, lessons, and apparatus,' and con- 
founded instruction with education. He overloaded 
the child with verbal information, depending upon the 
memory rather than the understanding. Before the 
child was six, it was expected that he had been taught 
reading, the fundamental operations in arithmetic, the 
tables of money, weights, and measures, a knowledge 
of the qualities of common objects, the habits of dif- 
ferent animals, the elements of astronomy, botany, 
and zoology, and the chief facts of the New Testament. 
Even the games were stereotyped, and the religious teach- 
ing most formal. 

Wilderspin's first school was opened at Spitalfields, gprgadof 
London, and soon attracted a horde of visitors. He schools; 
then began lecturing upon the subject throughout the 
United Kingdom, often demonstrating his methods with 



246 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Home and 

Colonial 

Society; 



classes of children he had taken along, and organized 
Sodef ■^'^^""^ infant schools everywhere. In 1824 an 'Infant School 
Society' was founded and through it several hundred 
schools were estabhshed. A dozen years later an organi- 
zation for training infant school teachers, known as 
'The Home and Colonial School Society/ was founded 
at London by Reverend Charles Mayo, D. D., and 
others. This society undertook to graft Pestalozzianism 
upon the infant school stock. While the combination 
resulted in some improvement of the infant schools, and 
real object teaching and sense training were more em- 
phasized than they had been, the spirit of Pestalozzi 
was largely lost, and there was too much imitation 
of the formal instruction of older children, and there 
was an evident attempt to cultivate infant prodigies. 
Through these agencies infant schools spread rapidly in 
Great Britain, and were adopted as a regular part of the 
Part of public pubHc system, when it was estabhshed in 1870 (p. 388). 
And four years later a marked advance was made 
through merging in them some of the methods and 
games of the kindergarten. 

'Infant Schools' in the United States. — Schools open 
to all younger children also sprang up in the United 
States during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. 
For many years they were nowhere regarded as an es- 
sential part of the public school system, and were man- 
aged separately, but about the middle of the century 
they were generally united. In 1818 Boston made its^ 
first appropriation for *' primary schools, to provide 
instruction for children between four and seven years 
of age." These schools were divided into four grades, 
beginning with the study of the alphabet and closing 



Boston 'pri- 
mary schools.' 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 247 

with reading in the New Testament. Besides reading, 
writing, and speUing, sewing and knitting were taught 
the girls. A formal course and the monitorial method 
were employed until about 1840, when the primary 
schools became largely inoculated with the informal 
procedure of Pestalozzi. The primary schools were 
for a long time under a separate committee, but in 1854 
the management was fused in a general city board. 

New York started an 'Infant School Society' in 1827. 
This organization opened two 'infant schools' for poor 
children between three and six years of age. One of 'Primary de- 

•^ ° partments m 

these schools was located in the basement of a Pres- New York, 
byterian Church and the other in that of a monitorial 
institution belonging to the Public School Society 
(see p. 261). The Pestalozzian methods used in these 
infant schools greatly commended themselves, and in 
1830 the Public School Society added them as 'primary 
departments' in all their buildings, but under separate 
management. A committee was appointed in 1832 
to examine the Society's schools and suggest improve- 
ments. Upon the recommendation of two of this com- 
mittee, who had inspected education in Boston, primary 
schools were estabhshed in rented rooms in sufficient 
numbers to be within easy reach for the young children. 
The subject-matter and methods were likewise made 
less formal. 

In 1827 three 'infant schools' were also founded in 
Philadelphia and other centers of Pennsylvania through ?"|i"[ ^f ^,°u'-^' 
Roberts Vaux. By 1830 the number of infant schools 
in the state had risen to ten, with two to three thousand 
pupils. As the numbers would indicate, the schools 
were largely organized upon the Lancasterian plan. 



248 A student's history of education 

Two years later a model infant school was started in 
Philadelphia, and in 1834 six others were organized. 
By 1837 there were thirty primary schools in Philadelphia 
centers^^'^ alone. Several other cities started infant schools early. 
Hartford began them in 1827, and Baltimore in 1829. 
These institutions were in most cases fostered by the 
leading men of the community, and the ultimate service 
performed for American education by this form of philan- 
thropy was considerable. Among other improvements, 
^ the infant schools developed a better type of school- 
room, secured separate rooms for different classes, in- 
tSough Ti^ant troduced better methods and equipment, encouraged a 
schools. movement toward playgrounds, and brought women 

into the city schools of the United States. 

The Importance of Philanthropic Education. — Many 
other types of charity school arose during the eight- 
eenth century both in Great Britain and America, but 
the chief movements have been described, and sufficient 
has been said to indicate the important part in educa- 
tion played by philanthropy. The moral, reHgious, 
Purpose, and economic condition of the lower classes had been 

sadly neglected, and by means of endowment, subscrip- 
tion, or organized societies, a series of attempts was 
made to relieve and elevate the masses through educa- 
tion. As a result, charity schools of many varieties 
and more or less permanent in character arose in all 
parts of the British Isles, the United States, and even 
location, France. In many instances the pupils were furnished 

course, with lodging, board, and clothes. The curriculum in 

these institutions was, of course, mostly elementary. It 
generally included reading, spelKng, writing, and arith- 
metic, while a moral and religious training was given 



PHILANTHROPY IN EDUCATION 249 

through the Bible, catechism, prayer book, and psahns, 
and sometimes through attendance at church under 
supervision of the master. Frequently industrial or 
vocational subjects were taught, or the pupils appren- 
ticed to a trade or to domestic service. The course was 
usually most formal both in matter and method, but 
occasionally in the later types drawing, geography, 
nature study, physical exercises, and games were added, 
and the more informal methods of Pestalozzi or Froebel ^^'^ methods, 
were partially employed. Sometimes the training was 
especially intended for and adapted to children under 
the usual school age. 

These efforts to improve social conditions by means 
of philanthropic education encountered various sorts of Various sorts 

^ ^ of opposition. 

opposition. Often the upper classes held that the masses 
should be kept in their place, and feared that any edu- 
cation at all would make them discontented and cause 
an uprising. The poor themselves, in turn, were often 
suspicious of any schooling that tended to elevate them, 
and were unwilling to stamp themselves as paupers. 
Moreover, the sectarian color that sometimes appeared 
in the rehgious training not infrequently repelled people 
of other creeds or kept the schools from receiving their 
children. 

However, this philanthropic education may, in general, 
be considered a fortunate movement, although its great- 
est service consisted in paving the way for better things. 
In contrast to the negative phase of 'naturalism,' it ^^^nftionar*^ 
represented a positive factor in the educational activities ^^^ public ed- 

^ *^ ^ ^ ucation. 

of the century. Instead of attempting to destroy exist- 
ing society utterly, it sought rather to reform it, and 
when the work of destruction gave opportunity for new 



250 A student's history of education 

ideals, it suggested and even furnished a reconstruction 
along higher lines. Hence philanthropy in education 
exercised an important influence in the direction of 
universal, national, and public training for citizenship. 
It was in many of its forms merged in such a system in 
several countries, and in succeeding chapters references 
to the S. P. C. K., S. P. G., Sunday, monitorial, and 
infant schools will naturally appear. 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. Ill; and 
Great Educators (Macmillan, 191 2), chap. XII; Parker, Modern 
Elementary Education (Ginn, 191 2), pp. 101-107. Allen, W. 0. B. 
and McClure, E., have presented The History of the S. P. C. K. 
(Christian Knowledge Society, London, 1901), and Pascoe, C. F., 
Two Hundred Years of the S. P. G. (Christian Knowledge Society, 
London, 1898), while Kemp, W. W., gives a detailed history of 
The Support of Schools in Colonial New York by the S. P. G. (Colum- 
bia University, Teachers College Contributions, no. 56, 1913), 
and Weber, S. E., of The Charity School Movement in Pennsylvania 
(Doctoral dissertation, University of Pennsylvania). Harris, J., 
furnishes a good description of Robert Raikes; the Man and His 
Work (Button, New York, 1899); Salmon, D., of Joseph Lancaster 
(Longmans, Green, 1904) ; Meiklejohn, J. M. D., of An Old Educa- 
tional Reformer, Dr. Andrew Bell (Bardeen, Syracuse) ; and Salmon, 
D., and Hindshaw, W., of Infant Schools, Their History and Theory 
(Longmans, Green, 1904). 




CHAPTER XXI 

THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 

OUTLINE 

Between the 'transplantation' period and that of the purely 
American conception of education was a distinctive stage in 
American education, — the 'period of transition.' 

During this period Virginia and the other Southern states began 
to develop sentiment for universal education, and started perma- 
nent school funds and 'permissive' laws for common schools. 

In the state of New York, appropriations were made for elemen- 
tary education, but the public system was not really extended to 
the secondary field; while in New York City the way for universal 
education was prepared by quasi-public societies. In Pennsyl- 
vania, school districts were established at Philadelphia and else- 
where, but not until 1834 was the state system of common schools 
started. New Jersey and Delaware were even slower in getting 
their systems started. 

The generous support of colonial education in Massachusetts 
was followed by a decline, and the control of schools was trans- 
ferred from the towns to the districts. Academies were subsi- 
dized by the state and took the place of the grammar schools. 
A similar decline took place in the schools of the other New Eng- 
land states, except Rhode Island, which for the first time began 
to develop schools at public expense. ' 

In the new states erected out of the Northwest Territory during 
this period there was a prolonged struggle to introduce common 
schools among those who had come from states not yet committed 
to this ideal, and state systems of education began to appear toward 
the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. 

Thus before the educational awakening spread through the land, 

251 



252 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

a radical modification had taken place in the European institu- 
tions with which America began its education. 



Evolution of Public Education in the United States. — 
We may now return to our discussion of education in 
America. It has already been seen (chap. XVII) that 
the organization of schools in the various colonies was 
largely the result of educational ideals and conditions 
in the Mother Country. At first the schools of America 
closely resembled those of the European countries from 
which the colonists came, and the seventeenth century 
in American education is largely a period of 'trans- 
plantation.' But toward the middle of the eighteenth 
century, as new social and political conditions were 
evolving and the days of the Revolution were approach- 
ing, there were evident a gradual modification of Eu- 
ropean ideals and the differentiation of American schools 
toward a type of their own. America has long stood, 
in theory at least, for equality of opportunity, and this 
conception of society is apparent in its views of educa- 
tion. The distinguishing characteristic of the American 
American^ con- schools has throughout been the attempt of a free people 
'^^p'^'o^ began iq educatc thcmsclves, and, through their elected repre- 
die of the sentatives, the people of the various states have come, 

eighteenth . . . . 

century. in harmony with the genius of American civilization, 

to initiate, regulate, and control their own systems of 
education. While the purely American conception of 
education cannot be fully discerned until almost the 
middle of the nineteenth century, there can for three- 
quarters of a century before be clearly distinguished 
' a period of transition ' from the inherited ideals to those 
of America to-day. This intervening stage of evolution 



PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 253 

covers roughly the last quarter century of colonial hfe 
and the first half century of statehood. To it we must 
nojiv direct our attention. 

/Rise of the Conimon School in Virginia. — By the 
opening of the period, as we noted (p. 193), Virginia had 
voluntarily made a fair provision for secondary and 
higher education in various localities, but as yet no real 
interest in common elementary schools had been shown 
by the responsible classes. The nearest approach to such 
institutions was found in the plantation 'field school.' ^^f?''' 
Organized by a group of neighbors, these schools were 
supported by tuition fees and were not dependent upon 
any authority other than the good sense of the parents 
and pupils. But by the close of the Revolution a desire 
for genuine pubHc education began to appear. The 
leader in the movement was the great statesman, Thomas 
Teflferson. As early as 1770, he first introduced into the Jefiferson's plan 

•* ^ / / 7| ^ for universal 

legislature a scheme of universal education. His bill education, 
proposed to lay off all the counties into small districts 
five or six miles square, to be called 'hundreds.' Each 
hundred was to estabhsh at its own expense an elemen- 
tary school, to which every citizen should be entitled to 
send his children free for three years, and for as much 
longer as he would pay. / The leading pupil in each 
school was to be selected arinually by a school visitor and 
sent to one of the twenty 'grammar' (i. e. secondary) 
schools, which were to be erected in various parts of the 
state. After a trial of two years had been made of these 
boys, the leader in each grammar school was to be selected 
and given a complete secondary course of six years, and 
the rest dismissed. At the end of this six-year course, the 
lower half of the geniuses thus determined were to be 



254 A student's history of education 

retained as teachers in the grammar schools, while the 
upper half were to be supported from the public treasury 
for three years at the College of William and Mary, 
which was to be greatly expanded in control and 
scope. 

This comprehensive plan for a system of common 
schools was, in the face of most discouraging opposition, 
constantly adhered to by Jefferson, although he did not 
live to see universal education an accomplished fact. He 
did, however, stimulate some movements toward this 
end. In 1796 the legislature passed an ineffective law 
whereby the justices of each county were permitted to 
initiate a school system by taxation, and in 1810 a 

Permissive law 'Hterary fund' was established for pubhc education. 

fund.' When, in 1816, this fund had been increased to a million 

dollars, those in charge of it recommended to the legisla- 
ture the establishment of "a system of public education, 
including a university, to be called the University of 

University of Virginia, and such additional colleges, academies, and 

Virginia. . 

schools as should diffuse the benefits of education 
through the Commonwealth." This revision of Jeffer- 
son's suggestion did not immediately result in any legal 
steps toward universal education, except the appropria- 
tion in 18 18 of $45,000 from the income of the literary 
fund to have the poor children of each county sent to a 
proper school, but it did bring about in 1820 the founda- 
tion of the University of Virginia and a generous grant 
for the erection of a set of buildings. In the same year 
the effectiveness of the 'permissive' law for common 
schools of 1796 and of the appropriation act of 1818 was 
somewhat strengthened by the division of the counties 
into districts, among which the appropriation for educa- 



PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 255 

tion of the poor was distributed and managed by special 
commissionejg^ 

While this law marked one more step in advance, it 
was hampered by several of the features that in various 
states continually delayed the establishment of common 
schools at pubKc expense. In the first place, it was based 
on the conception of public education as poor relief, 
rather than universal training for citizenship. It was Hindrances to 

. . universal edu- 

of ten viewed with hostibty or indifference by the wealthy, cation, 
who felt that they were paying for that from which they 
received no benefit, and with pride and scorn by the 
poor, who refused to be considered objects of charity. 
Moreover, the sum distributed ($45,000) was totally 
inadequate for over one hundred thousand children, and 
every variety of school, private as well as public, was 
subsidized without distinction. The system lacked a 
strong central organization, and the commissioners, often 
appointed by the county judges from the classes most 
opposed to the arrangement, were notoriously inefficient. 
The teachers also were generally incompetent, as it was 
practically impossible to persuade college or academy 
graduates to undertake the instruction of the poor. 
Nevertheless, under this apology for a people's common 
school, the state went on for a score of years, and there 
was a steady growth in the literary fund, the appropria- 
tions, the length of the school term, and the number of butgradualim- 

'-' ^ _ provement. 

pupils who were willing to take advantage of such oppor- 
tunities as it afforded. State officials of wide vision, 
moreover, sought in every way to improve the teaching 
corps and the defective administration. While the great 
majority of the school children still attended the denomi- 
national, private, and 'field' schools (see p. 253), this 



256 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Maryland, 



South Caro- 
lina, 



Georgia, 



system of subsidies was educating public opinion for 
something better. By the close of the first half century of 
statehood, while Virginia was not yet ready to establish a 
complete system of pubHc education, we shall later 
(see pp. 32 7 f.) find that the ground had been prepared for 
the development of common schools that was spreading 
throughout the country. 

Similar Developments in the Other Southern States. — 
This advance toward the common school in Virginia is 
typical of the South. The development in Maryland 
was very similar to that of Virginia. The state began to 
move slowly toward universal education by subsidizing 
the education of the poor (1816), and by the passage of a 
'permissive' law for common schools in the counties 
(1825). In South Carolina an annual appropriation for 
'free schools' was started in 181 1. A law was passed 
establishing a number of schools in each election district 
equal to that of its members in the legislature and pro- 
viding $300 for each school. But these schools were 
largely regarded as pauper institutions, and, because 
legislative representation was based upon property, the 
distribution of the appropriation was very inequitable, 
for the inland parts of the state, which most needed 
assistance, received least. Yet the amount of appropria- 
tion gradually increased, and sentiment for universal 
education steadily developed. Within the first half 
dozen years of statehood, Georgia began the provision 
of land endowment for schools, and the organization of a 
state system under the title of the 'University of Georgia.' 
While the value of the land was too small to estabhsh a 
genuine system of public education so soon, before the 
close of the transition period, a permanent school fund 



PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 257 

had been started, and sentiment for public education had 
begun to grow. North Carolina made even earlier p^J^^^^^ 
progress toward common schools. The constitution of 
1776 provided for the establishment of schools, and, 
by 181 7, at the request of the legislature, Judge Archibald 
D. Murphy, a statesman with broad educational tradi- 
tions, even formulated an elaborate plan for a complete 
system of public schools. This scheme failed, because it 
proposed to 'maintain,' as well as educate, the children of 
the poor. But the suggestions of the Murphy committee 
shortly brought about the establishment of a 'Hterary,' 
or common school fund (1825), the income of which was 
to be used for the support of public schools. 

In the case of the other Southern commonwealths, 
which were admitted after the union had been formed, 
there was similarly a very gradual growth of sentiment and afterward 

"^ -^ ° other common- 

for universal education. In every state there appeared an wealths, had 
alliance between far-sighted statesmen and educators and of a state 
the great middle class of citizens for the purpose of ^^^ ^"' 
establishing common schools for all white children, and 
the old ecclesiastical and exclusive idea of education was 
beginning to fade. By the close of the first half century of 
national existence, a public system had not actually 
materialized in any of the states, but most of them had 
begun to create 'literary funds,' subsidize schooling for 
the poor, and enact 'permissive' laws for estabhshing 
public schools. Except in Virginia and South Carolina, 
provisions had been made for general administration in 
state, county, and district; and in North Carolina the 
organization of a complete common school system ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ 
awaited only a first hint of the great educational awaken- "^^nlzed^hek^' 
ing (183 5- 1 860). Moreover, most of the larger cities — schools. 



258. A student's history of education 

Baltimore, Charleston, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, 
Mobile, New Orleans — had already organized a regular 
system of public schools, and all of the older common- 
wealths had made some attempt at supporting a state 
institution of higher learning, which was virtually the 
head of a pubKc school system. The various denomina- 
tions had begun to found colleges in some numbers, but 
even these institutions were not so strictly ecclesiastical 
as WilHam and Mary started out to be, and assumed a 
wider function than merely training for the ministry, 
while the aristocratic and classical ' grammar ' schools had 
largely given way to the 'academies' (Fig. 32), which 
were nonsectarian, democratic, and more comprehensive 
in their curriculum. 

Evolution of Public Education in New York. — After 
the English took possession of New York, we have seen 
■ (p. 195) how that territory lapsed into the laissez 
faire support of education. The upper classes of society 
largely sought their education abroad or through tutors 
and the clergy, although in 1754 King's College (now 
Columbia University) was founded, and during the 
century a number of secondary schools were organized 
and granted gratuities by the legislature. The few 
elementary schools that existed were either private or 
maintained by some church or philanthropic society. 
As already shown (pp. 234 £f.), this was the period dis- 
tinguished for the schools founded by the Society for the 
Propagation of the Gospel. At the close of the Revolu- 
tion, however, the various elements of the population 
had been welded together in the common struggle, and a 
sentiment for public education began to prevail over 
vested interests and sectarian jealousies. A series of 



PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 259 

broad-minded governors — the Clintons, Lewis, Tomp- 
kins, and Marcy — constantly reminded the legislature of 
its duty to establish common schools. In 1787 a system System under 
of public education was theoretically organized under the gents, but did 
management of a Board of Regents, with the title of eiementol^r 
'The University of the State of New York,' but it did not =^^°°'^- 
include elementary schools. Two years later lands in 
each township were set apart for the endowment of Endowment of 

'■ ^ -^ ^ common 

common schools, and in 1795 it was enacted that the schools, 
sum of $50,000 for five years should be distributed for 
the encouragement of elementary education in counties 
where the towns would raise by taxation half as much as 
the amount of their share. This arrangement was not 
carried on beyond the five years, but in 1805 the proceeds 
from 500,000 acres of land were appropriated for a com- 
mon school fund, which was not to be used until the 
interest reached $50,000 per annum. 

In 181 2 further organization was enacted whereby a 
state superintendent of common schools was to be ap- state superin- 

tendency and 

pomted, and the county unit replaced by a more demo- further prog- 

rcss. 

cratic town and district basis. But it had been supposed 
that the state fund would provide for the entire support 
of the schools, and there still remained an obstinate op- 
position to local taxes. The towns, however, were gradu- 
ally persuaded to raise the amount required to secure 
their share of the state donation. Much progress was 
brought about through the first superintendent, Gideon 
Hawley, and while, after eight years of service, he was 
removed by political manipulation and the office com- Combination 

"^ '■ \ ^ with secretary- 

bmed with the secretaryship of state, each of his sue- ship of state, 
cessors undertook to distinguish the educational side 
of his administration by some marked advance or 



26o 



A student's history or EDUCATION 



improvement in the common schools. But for a genera- 
tion the academies and colleges remained under super- 
vision of the regents, and, except for state appropriations 
to academies, no one undertook to extend the public 
Public second- system into secondary and higher education. More- 

ary and normal ■^ ^ o 

schools de- over, the professional training of teachers in the acade- 

layed by . 

academy ap- mics was cncouragcd by the state, and thereby the or- 
ganization of normal schools was delayed. Hence, while 
New York started the first system of public education 
adjusted to the political and social conditions of the new 
nation, and probably had the most effective schools of 
the times, not until the great period of common school 
development (1835-1860) were its people fully willing 
to contribute for a general school system, make it en- 
tirely free, or develop it consistently in all directions. 

New York City. — Meanwhile, an interesting develop- 
ment of educational facilities was taking place in New 
York City. In 1805 the opportunities offered in the 
private, church, and charity schools were seen by certain 
of the most prominent citizens to be totally inadequate 
for a city of seventy-five thousand inhabitants, and a 
'Free School Society' was founded to provide for the 
boys who were not eligible for these schools. The presi- 
dent was De Witt Clinton, afterward governor, and in 
1806 the first school was opened, from motives of econ- 
omy, upon the monitorial basis (see p. 241). The state 
fund did not reach a sufficient amount to be available 
until 181 5, but special gifts were made to the school 
society from time to time by the legislature, the city, 
and private individuals, and there was a rapid increase 
in the number of the society's schools during the first 
quarter of a century. In 1826 the legislature authorized 



'Free School 
Society.' 



PERIOD or TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 26 1 

the organization to charge a small tuition fee and change Change of 

its name to the 'PubHc School Society.' While the fee 

system was soon found to injure the efficiency of the 

work and was abolished within six years, the new title 

persisted, as it did not suggest pauperism in the way the 

old name had. In 1828 the society was allowed the 

benefit of a small local tax. For quite a time the work 

of the association was unhindered, but in 1820-1825 a 

vigorous effort was made to obtain a share of the state 

appropriation for the sectarian schools of the Bethel church ^on^^* 

Baptist Church. This move was finally defeated, but troversy. 

the Roman Cathohcs made a more successful protest 

fifteen years later by indicating that the society, while 

nominally nonsectarian, was really Protestant. To 

settle this dispute, the legislature in 1842 estabhshed a 

city board of education, and after eleven years the insti- ^Jucation^ °* 

tutions of the PubKc School Society were merged in this 

city system. Thus was the way prepared for a public 

school system in New York City/' and this development 

was typical of the training of educational sentiment 

through quasi-pubUc societies that took place in Buffalo, 

Utica, Oswego, and several other cities. 

Development of Systems of Education in Pennsyl- 
vania and the Other Middle States. — The rise of pubhc 
systems in the other Middle states was also gradual. In 
Pennsylvania, the state system slowly arose through a 
prolonged stage of 'poor schools.' The new constitution Constitutional 

tr o ox- provision in 

(1700) of the state declared: "The legislature shall, as Pennsylvania 

• 1 1 • 1 i_ 1 r .1 produced only 

soon as conveniently may be, provide by law tor the 'poor schools.' 
estabhshment of schools throughout the State, in such 
manner that the poor may be taught gratis." Men of 
broad vision, like Franklin, Benjamin Rush, and Timothy 



262 A student's history of education 

Pickering, had striven hard to have popular education 
introduced, but the general sentiment of the times could 
not reach beyond providing free education for the poor. 
Moreover, although this moderate constitutional provi- 
sion was a compromise, it was not until some years later 
(1802, 1804, and 1809) that the legislature passed acts 
to make it effective. Even then public institutions to 
fulfill the legislation were not established, but it was 
arranged that the tuition of poor children should be paid 
for at public expense in private, church, and neighbor- 
hood schools, and the proceeds of the sixty thousand 
acres of land appropriated for 'aiding public schools' 
went to subsidize private institutions. But the idea of 
common schools continued to develop, and governors 
and other prominent men constantly called attention to 
the need of universal education. Philadelphia was the 
first municipality to be converted, and in 1818, under a 
special act of the legislature, it became 'the first school 
district of Pennsylvania,' with the power to provide a 
in"phiiadeiphia systcm of educatiou on the Lancasterian plan at public 
and elsewhere, expense. After three or four years this special legislation 
was extended to five more 'districts', and in 1824 a gen- 
eral law permitting the establishment of free schools in 
any community was enacted, though soon repealed. 

Finally, in 1828, 'the Pennsylvania Society for the 

Promotion of Common Schools,' after demonstrating 

ofa^state™^°^ ^^^ ineffectiveness of the 'pauper school' law in a series 

school fund of memorials, succeeded in having a state school fund es- 

and a state . . . 

school system, tablished, and in 1834, " an act to establish a general sys- 
tem of education by common schools " was passed. This 
law established a state system of schools under the gen- 
eral superintendency of the secretary of state. For this 



PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 263 

system it appropriated $75,000 per annum from the 
income of the state school fund, and permitted the wards, 
townships, and boroughs, which it constituted school 
districts, to share in this, provided they levied local taxes 
for schools. The Northern counties, settled mostly by 
New England colonists, and the Western portion of the 
state, with its large element of Scotch-Irish Presby- 
terians, ardently favored this encouragement of uni- 
versal education, but the law was only 'permissive' and 
was bitterly opposed by the Quaker and German in- 
habitants of 'old' Pennsylvania, who feared that their 
own parochial schools would be replaced. The wealthy 
classes were also hostile to the new law, on the ground 
that they ought not to be taxed to educate other people's 
children. In a vigorous campaign to repeal the act. Effort to repeal 

° -^ " unsuccessful. 

however, the opponents of the law, largely through the 
eloquent speech of Thaddeus Stevens, were defeated the 
following year (1835), and the desire to estabhsh public 
schools was greatly increased in 1836 by the passage of a 
new law, which enlarged the annual appropriation to 
$200,000, in which the school districts might participate 
only on condition of local taxation. Even then not more 
than one-half the districts took advantage of the oppor- 
tunity, and it was several years before most of them 
claimed their share. Hence, while the battle was won by 
1835, the consummation of public education in Pennsyl- 
vania did not take place until the great awakening of 
common schools had swept over the country. 

After the formation of the Union, New Jersey and 

Delaware met with the same kinds of hindrance to the similar hin- 
drances m New 
development of common schools as did Pennsylvania, Jersey and 

and they were even slower in getting a system established. 



264 A student's history of education 

In both commonwealths a state school fund was started 
early in the nineteenth century, but it was not distributed 
for about a dozen years, and then it was used mostly 
for the education of paupers in subsidized private schools. 
Some 'permissive' legislation for the organization of 
school districts and commissioners and the estabhsh- 
ment of pubhc schools was also passed, but it accom- 
pKshed little before the middle of the century. 

Decline of Education in Massachusetts. — In Massa- 
chusetts, on the other hand, efforts for the provision of 
universal training degenerated during the eighteenth 
century. The generous support of public education that 
had been started in 1647 was followed by a period of 
decline for about a century and a haK. The causes of 
this decadence of local interest in education were rather 
compHcated. In the first place., the complete domination 
of'the^domina- 0^ Calvinism gradually disintegrated and was replaced 
virSsm! ^*^ ^y a toleration of several creeds. The non-Puritans, 
who were constantly increasing in numbers, were obHged 
by the law of 1638 to preserve an outward conformity 
to the Calvinistic regime under penalty of banishment, 
but by 1662 a compromise was granted, whereby persons 
not conforming in every respect might be admitted to 
all church privileges, except communion, and the perse- 
cution of Quakers, Baptists, and other sects was largely 
abandoned. In 1670 came the successful secession of 
the Old South Church from the original church of Boston, 
as the result of a quarrel concerning this very compro- 
mise, and within a decade the Baptists were permitted to 
build a meeting-house in Boston. By 1692 recognition 
had been largely granted to all Protestant beliefs, and 
to be a 'freeman,' or voter on all colonial questions, it 




Fig. 30. — A 'kitchen school.' 




Fig. 31. — A colonial 'summer school.' 







\mm i f 




Fig. 32. — The first 'academy,' founded by Benjamin Franklin at 
Philadelphia in 1750, and later developed into the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. 



PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 269 

(Fig. 41) had been established in Boston (1821), but this 
type of secondary school had not begun to have any in- 
fluence as yet. Into such a decadence had the liberally 
supported system of public education fallen, before the 
rapid development in common schools began and the in- 
fluence of Horace Mann and other reformers was felt. 
Q^JTJevelopments in the Other New England States. — 
The development of common schools in Massachusetts 
may be considered typical of New England in general, 
except Rhode Island. Connecticut similarly degenerated Connecticut, 
into a district system, which was recognized by law in 
1794, and was destined later to constitute one of the 
greatest problems during the period of educational de- 
velopment (see pp.313 and 320). Vermont Ukewise made Vermont, 
provision for town and district schools, and eventually 
estabHshed a state school fund and school commissioners, 
but this legislation was soon repealed, and the schools of 
the state were in a parlous condition when the awakening 
found them. New Hampshire and Maine also present New Hamp- 

"■ shire, and 

very similar features. In Rhode Island the voluntary Rhode island 
organization of education continued throughout the 
eighteenth century. In 1800 a law permitting each town 
to maintain 'one or more free schools' was passed, but 
no municipahty availed itself of this permission, except 
Providence, and the act was repealed in 1803. The basal 
state law for common schools was not passed until 1828, 
when at length $10,000 was appropriated, and each 
town was required to supplement its share by such an 
amount as should annually be fixed in town meeting. 
C The Extension of Educational Organization to the 
Northwest. — It is thus evident that by the close of the 
first half century of the republic, there was everywhere 



l^-v*^ 



'iA^tU^ ^\^Jlr-^^ ' / 



' a£. .-(L-A^...^ ^-> 



u JU 



270 



A STODE^rSBK 




)RY OF EDUCATION 



1fJt 



Conditions at 



and Middle 
states. 



slowly growing up a sentiment for public education. 
dose^ofTransi- Thc development of common schools had, however, been 
the° Southern greatly hindered in the Southern states by the separation 
of classes in an aristocratic organization of society. Yet 
the superior class had shown no lack of educational in- 
terest in their own behalf and had through the facihties 
offered reared a group of intellectual leaders, some of 
whom, Kke the far-sighted Jefferson, had caught the 
vision of universal education. The great diversity of 
nationality and creed in the Middle states, on the other 
hand, had fostered sectarian jealousies and the tradi- 
tional practice of the maintenance of its own school by 
each congregation. This had proved almost as disastrous 
to the rise of a system of public schools, although Penn- 
sylvania, and even more New York, had well begun the 
estabHshment of a public system. In both sections of 
the country public education was at first viewed as a 
species of poor relief, and the wealthy were unable to 
see any justice in being required to educate the children 
of others. As a result, the young 'paupers' at times had 
their tuition paid in private schools, and these institu- 
tions were not infrequently allowed to share in public 
funds. The New England states, however, as a result 
of the homogeneity of their citizens, had early adhered 
to a system of public schools for all, organized, sup- 
ported, and supervised by the people. While the effi- 
ciency of their common schools was eventually crippled 
by the grant of autonomy to local districts and the aris- 
ing of petty private and political interests, they had 
initiated this unique American product, — a public sys- 
tem for all, dependent upon local support and responsive 
to local wishes. 



as opposed to 
those in New 
England. 



PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 27 1 

This growth of a ' common schools consciousness ' was 
destined, as the result of a great educational awakening, 
to increase rapidly during the second quarter of the 
nineteenth century in the Middle and Southern, as well 
as the New England, states. But before describing this 
development further, it is important to see the effect of 
the ideals of these three sections of the country when 
introduced into a new part of the United States by emi- 
grants from the older commonwealths. The new domain Effect of these 

° conditions 

referred to was those large tracts of unsettled territory, upon, 'he 

° . •" Northwest 

belonging, according to claims more or less overlapping. Territory, 
to six or seven of the original states, and finally (1781), 
in settlement of these disputes, ceded to the federal 
government, with the understanding that the territory 
should be 'formed into distinct repubhcan States.' 
After much discussion and various acts of Congress for 
half a dozen years, the famous 'Ordinance of 1787' was The Ordinance 
passed for the government of this 'Northwest Territory.' provisions for 
By the act the entire territory was divided into town- 
ships, six miles square, after the New England system, 
and of the thirty-six sections into which each township 
was subdivided, section sixteen was reserved for the 
support of public schools. Two townships of land were 
also dedicated for the estabhshment of a university. 
This policy of educational endowment was later ex- 
tended to the vast territory purchased from France in 
1803 and known as 'Louisiana,' and to all the other 
territory afterward annexed to the United States. 

This federal land endowment gave an additional 
stimulus to the establishment of public education in the 
four commonwealths — Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michi- 
gan — that were admitted from the Northwest Territory 



272 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Hindrances to 
educational de- 
velopment. 



Struggle to 
secure public 
school sys- 
tem, — 



Ohio, 

Indiana, and 
Illinois; 



before 1840. But the final system of public education in 
these new states took form slowly for various reasons. 
The settlers were poor; incessant Indian wars, the wilder- 
ness, wretched roads, and lack of transportation facili- 
ties tended to repel immigrants and leave the country 
sparsely settled ; the large tracts of school land were slow 
in acquiring value, and, to attract settlers, were often 
leased at nominal rates or sacrificed at a small price; 
and social distinctions and sectarian jealousies persisted 
among the immigrants. As a whole, immigration from 
the earher commonwealths had followed parallels of lat- 
itude, and the northern parts of Ohio, Indiana, and 
Illinois were occupied mostly by people from New Eng- 
land and New York, and the southern by former in- 
habitants of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, 
and other states where the public school system was not 
yet as well developed. In Michigan, however, because of 
its northerly location, the great influx throughout the 
state had come from New York, New England, and 
Northern Ohio. 

Consequently, the history of public education in the 
first three of the new states seems to be in each case 
largely a record of a prolonged struggle to introduce 
common schools among those of the people who had come 
from states not yet committed to this ideal, but Michi- 
gan, whose inhabitants had migrated from states where 
public education was in vogue, showed the germs of a 
public system even before statehood was conferred. The 
history of the common schools in Ohio, Indiana, and 
Illinois is very similar in general outline. Each one 
started off by claiming two townships of land for a uni- 
versity and the sixteenth section for schools, and the 



PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 273 

state constitution committed it to equal school oppor- 
tunities for all. But not until the close of the first quarter 
of the nineteenth century was a system of common 
schools, with the organization of districts, appointment 
of school officers, and local taxation provided by the 
legislature. Even then the acts were largely 'permissive/ 
the tax was not exacted from anyone who objected, and 
for some time various laws allowed pubhc funds to be 
paid to existing private schools for the tuition of the 
poor. The complete system with a state superintendent 
was first organized in Ohio by 1836, but a similar stage 
of development was not reached by the other two states 
until after the great wave of common school development 
(1835-1860) had passed over the country. Michigan, MkhiKan. 
on the other hand, as early as 181 7 established a 'cathol- 
epistemiad,' which was to include a university and a 
system of schools of all grades, and a dozen years later in 
its revision of the school laws provided for a department 
of Education at the university and a territorial superin- 
tendency of schools. While under this law of 1829 tui- 
tion fees were to be required, except from the poor, by 
the first state constitution In 1837 the school lands were 
taken over from the wasteful management of the towns, 
and a public school was required to be open for three 
months in every district. The state superin tendency 
was also established, and before 1840 Michigan was 
well started with a complete system of common schools. 
Condition of the Common Schools Prior to the Awak- 
ening. — Thus, while some of the New England states, 
New York, and Ohio possessed the only definitely or- 
ganized systems of public education, the movement for 
common schools had made some progress in all sections 



274 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

Progress in all of the couiitry even before the educational awakening 
country. Spread through the land. A radical modification had 

taken place in the European institutions with which 
education in the United States began. To meet the de- 
mands of the new environment, education had become 
more democratic and less rehgious and sectarian. Wealth 
had become much greater and material interests had 
met with a marked growth. The old aristocratic insti- 
tutions had begun to disappear. Town and district 
schools had been taking the place of the old church, 
private, and ' field ' schools, and in some of the cities the 
foundation for public education was being laid by quasi- 
public societies or even through local taxation. The acad- 
emies (Fig. 32) had replaced the 'grammar' schools, and 
the colleges had lost their distinctly ecclesiastical char- 
acter. State universities were starting in the South and 
Northwest. All these evidences of the growth of democ- 
racy, nonsectarianism, and popular training in education 
were destined to be greatly multiplied and spread before 
long. Such an awakening will be found to be character- 
istic of the great development of common schools that 
took place in the decades around the middle of the nine- 
teenth century. But, before pursuing the subject further, 
we must direct our attention to some new reforms in 
method and content that were being introduced by 
Pestalozzi into education in Europe and were destined to 
produce a great stimulus in the public systems of the 
United States. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. IV; Parker, 
Modern Elementary Education (Ginn, 1912), chap. XII. A general, 



PERIOD OF TRANSITION IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 275 

but not always accurate account of the period has been contrib- 
uted by Mayo, A. D., to the Report of the U. S. Commissioner 
of Education, 1893-94, XVI; 1894-95, XXVIII; 1895-96, VI and 
VII; 1897-98, XI; and 1898-99, VIII. For the special states, see 
Adams, H. B., Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia 
(United States Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 
1888, no. i) ; Boone, R. G., History of Education in Indiana (Apple- 
ton, 1892), chaps. I-III, and V-VII; Johnston, R. M., Early Edu- 
cational Life in Middle Georgia (Report of the U. S. Commissioner 
of Education, 1894-95, XVI, and 1895-96, VII); Martin, G. H., 
Evolution of the Massachusetts Public School System (Appleton, 
1894), lect. Ill; Palmer, A. E., The New York Public School (Mac- 
millan, 1905); Randall, S. S., History of the Common School System 
of the State of New York (Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor, New York, 
187 1) Second Period; Smith, C. L., History of Education in North 
Carolina (U. S. Bureau of Education, Circular of Information, 
no. 2, 1888) ; Smith, W. L., Historical Sketch of Education in Michi- 
gan (Lansing, 1881), pp. 1-7, 39-49, and 57-78; Steiner, B. C, 
History of Education in Connecticut (U. S. Bureau, Circular of In- 
formation, no. 2, 1893), and History of Education in Maryland 
(U. S. Bureau, Circular of Information, no. 2, 1894), chaps. II-IV; 
Stock well, T. B., History of Public Education in Rhode Island 
(Providence Press Co., Providence, 1876), chaps. II-V; Updegraff, 
H., The Origin of the Moving School in Massachusetts (Columbia 
University, Teachers College Contributions, no. 17, 1907), chaps. 
V-X; Wickersham, J. P., History of Education in Pennsylvania 
(Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1886), chaps. XIII-XVII, 



CHAPTER XXII 

OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING IN EDUCATION 

■^VvV OUTLINE 

Pestalozzi was the first prominent educator to develop the nega- 
tive naturalism of Rousseau into positive reforms. 

He desired to elevate the peasantry about him, and, failing in 
other expedients, undertook to accomplish this through a com- 
bination of industrial and intellectual training at Neuhof. This 
training he continued at Stanz, and began the development of 
his observational methods. In his work at Burgdorf , he was forced 
to suspend his industrial training, but he further developed his 
*A B C of observation,' and at Yverdon the method reached its 
culmination. 

Like Rousseau, Pestalozzi conceived of education as a natural 
development of innate powers, and he extended its appHcation to 
all children. In his method he held that clear ideas could be 
formed only by means of sense perceptions, and he undertook to 
analyze each subject into its simplest elements and develop it 
by graded exercises. 

While not original, practical, or scientific, Pestalozzi made 
education the remedy for corruption in society, and started the 
modern methods in the elementary studies. Pestalozzkn schools 
and methods spread rapidly through Europe and the United States. 

The attempt to combine industrial training with intellectual, 
which Pestalozzi had to give up, was continued by his friend, 
Fellenberg, in his institutions at Hofwyl. Similar training was 
developed throughout Europe. In the United States it stimulated 
the 'manual labor' movement, and was later utilized as a solution 
for racial and other peculiar problems in education. 

Pestalozzi as the Successor of Rousseau. — Having 
outlined the various phases of philanthropic education 

276 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 277 

and surveyed the development of the common school in 
America, we may now turn again to the more immediate 
development of the movements that found their roots in 
Rousseau. It has been noted how Rousseau's 'naturalis- 
tic' doctrines logically pointed to a complete demolition 
of the artificial society and education of the times. A 
pause at this point would have led to anarchy. If civi- 
lization is not to disappear, social destruction must 
be followed by reconstruction. Of course the negative 
attitude of the Emile was itself accompanied by con- 
siderable positive advance in its suggestions for a nat- 
ural training, but this advice was often unpractical and 
extreme and its main emphasis was upon the destruction 
of existing education. Hence the happiest educational Development 
results of Rousseau's work came through Pestalozzi, of Rousseau by 
who especially supplemented that reformer's work upon 
the constructive side. Pestalozzi became the first prom- 
inent educator to develop the negative and somewhat 
inconsistent ' naturaUsm ' of Rousseau into a more posi- 
tive attempt to reform corrupt society by proper educa- 
tion and a new method of teaching. 

Pestalozzi' s Philanthropic and Industrial Ideals. — 
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was born at Zurich in 1746. 
After the death of his father, he was brought up almost 
altogether by his mother. Through her unselfishness 
and piety, and the example of his grandfather, pastor in mothe? and 
a neighboring village, Pestalozzi was inspired to relieve grandfather. 
and elevate the degraded peasantry about him. He first 
turned to the ministry as being the best way to accom- 
plish this philanthropic purpose, and later took up the 
study of law, with the idea of defending the rights of tempts to eie- 
his people, but he was not able to succeed in either pro- antry. ^ ^^^ 



278 A student's history of education 

fession. Then, in 1769, he undertook to demonstrate 
to the peasants the value of improved methods of agri- 
culture. He took up a strip of waste land at Birr, which 
he called Neuhof ('new farm'), but within five years 
this experiment also proved a lamentable failure. Mean- 
time a son had been born to him, whom he had under- 
taken to rear upon the basis of the Emile, and the re- 
sults, recorded in a Father's Journal, suggested new 
ideas and educational principles for the regeneration 
of the masses. He began to hold that education did 
not consist merely in books and knowledge, and that 
the children of the poor could, by proper training, be 
taught to earn their living and at the same time develop 
their intelligence and moral nature. 

His Industrial School at Neuhof and the Leonard and 
Gertrude. — Hence the failure of his agricultural venture 
afforded Pestalozzi the opportunity he craved to ex- 
periment with philanthropic and industrial education. 
Toward the end of 1774 he took into his home some 
twenty of the most needy children he could find. These 
he fed, clothed, and treated as his own. He gave the 
boys practical instruction in farming and gardening on 
small tracts, and had the girls trained in domestic duties 
and needlework. In bad weather both sexes gave their 
time to spinning and weaving cotton. They were also 
trained in the rudiments, but were practiced in convers- 
ing and in memorizing the Bible before learning to read 
Scholastic in and Write. The scholastic instruction was given very 

struction given 

while the chii- largely while they were working, and, although Pes- 
working. talozzi had not as yet learned to make any direct connec- 

tion between the occupational and the formal elements, 
this first attempt at an industrial education made it 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 279 

evident that the two could be combined. Within a 
few months there was a striking improvement in the 
physique, minds, and morals of the children, as well 
as in the use of their hands. But Pestalozzi was so en- 
thusiastic over the success of his experiment that he 
greatly increased the number of children, and by 1780 
was reduced to bankruptcy. 

Nevertheless, his wider purpose of social reform by 
means of education was not allowed to languish alto- 
gether, for a friend shortly persuaded him to publish 
his views. His first production. The Evening Hour of a 
Hermit, embodied most of the educational principles ^hooi^was 
he afterward made famous, but he was advised to put closed he pub- 

'^ lisned his 

his thought into more popular form, and soon wrote his views, 
highly successful story of Leonard and Gertrude (1781). 
This work, with subsequent additions, gives an account 
of the degraded social conditions in the Swiss village of 
' Bonnal ' and the changes wrought in them by one simple 
peasant woman. 'Gertrude' reforms her drunkard 
husband, educates her children, and causes the whole 
community to feel her influence and adopt her methods. 
When finally a wise schoolmaster comes to the village, 
he learns from Gertrude the proper conduct of the school 
and begs for her continued cooperation. Then the 
government becomes interested, studies the improve- 
ments that have taken place, and concludes that the 
whole country can be reformed in no better way than by 
imitating Bonnal. 

His School at Stanz and Beginning of His Observa- 
tional Methods. — In 1798 he was given an opportunity 
to carry on his philanthropic and industrial ideals in 
education through the orphan home and school at Stanz, 



28o A student's history of education 

of which he was put in charge. Here he found it im- 
Having no possible to obtaiti any assistants, books, and materials, 

other facilities, '^ •' . . 

he instructed but he felt that none of these conventional aids could 
servation' in be of service in the work he desired to do. Hence he 
sought to instruct the children rather by experience and 
observation than by abstract statements and words (Fig. 
33). This was the real beginning of his teaching through 
'observation,' and, while at Stanz he further developed 
his correlation of intellectual with manual training, his 
observational methods were thereafter destined to be 
^'^^ ' more stressed. Religion and morals, for example, were 

never taught by precepts, but through instances that 
arose in the lives of the children he showed them the 
value of self-control, charity, sympathy, and gratitude. 
In a similarly concrete way the pupils were instructed 
guSe^'^'and'^ in number and language work by means of objects, and 
other subjects, jn geography and history by conversation rather than 
by books. While they did not learn their natural history 
primarily from nature, they were taught to corroborate 
what they had learned by their own observation. About 
this method he said: "According to my experience, 
success depends upon whether what is taught to chil- 
dren commends itself to them as true through being 
closely connected with their own observation. As a 
general rule, I attached little importance to the study 
of words, even when explanations of the ideas they repre- 
sented were given." 

In connection with his observational method, Pes- 

talozzi at this time began his attempt to reduce all 

reducing per- perception to its lowest terms, 'the A B C of observa- 

ception to its . 

lowest terms, tion,' as he afterward called it. It was while at Stanz, 
for example, that he first adopted his well-known plan 



/^ 



OBSERVATION A5jD INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 28 1 



of teaching children to read by means of exercises known 
as 'syllabaries.' These joined the five vowels in succes- 
sion to the different consonants, — 'ab, eb, ib, ob, ub,' 
and so on through all the consonants. From the phonetic 
nature of German spelling, he was able to make the ex- 
ercises very simple, and thus to furnish a necessary prac- 
tice in basal syllables. In a similar way he hoped to 
simphfy all education to such an extent that schools 
would eventually become unnecessary, and that each 
mother would be able to teach her children and con- 
tinue her own education at the same time. 

Continuation of His Methods at Burgdorf, and How 
Gertrude Teaches her Children. — From these experi- 
ments and concrete methods that Pestalozzi started at 
Stanz gradually developed all his educational contribu- 
tions. But before the close of a year he was forced by cir- 
cumstances to remove to Burgdorf. Here, on ac- 
count of the social position of many of his pupils, he Suspension of 

^ ^ •' r- r- J combination of 

had to suspend his experiment of combining indus- industrial with 

. . . . intellectual 

trial with intellectual training, although, as will later elements. 
be seen, his special efforts in this direction were greatly 
enlarged and perpetuated by Fellenberg. He now de- 
voted himself to his 'A B C of observation,' and further 
worked out and graduated his 'syllabaries.' Language and'otife"'iaii- 
exercises were also given his pupils by means of examin- guage exercises, 
ing the number, form, position, and color of the designs, 
holes, and rents in the wall paper of the school, and ex- 
pressing their observations in longer and longer sen- 
tences, which they repeated after him. For arithmetic ^nthmetic, 
he devised charts upon which were placed dots or lines 
concretely representing each unit up to one hundred. 
By means of this 'table of units' (Fig. 34), the pupil 



282 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



obtained a clear idea of the meaning of the digits 

and the fundamental processes in arithmetic. The 

geometry and children were also taught the elements of geometry 

other studies. . , ° o j 

by drawing angles, lines, and curves, and the develop- 
ment of teaching history, geography, and natural history 
by this method of observation was likewise continued. 
Despite a want of system and errors in carrying out 
Success of the his method, Pestalozzi seems to have produced remark- 
able results from the start. Pupils poured in ; a number 
of progressive teachers came to assist him ; many persons 
of prominence visited the school and made most favor- 
able reports upon its methods; and during the following 
three years and a half the Pestalozzian views on educa- 
tion were systematically developed and applied. While 
at Burgdorf also, he undertook a detailed statement of 
his method by the pubhcation of his How Gertrude 
Teaches Her Children (1801). This work does not men- 
tion Gertrude, but consists of fifteen letters to his friend, 
Gessner. Like all of Pestalozzi's works, it is quite lack- 
ing in both plan and proportion, and is filled with repeti- 
tions and digressions, but the following portion of the 
summary of its principles, made by a biographer of Pes- 
talozzi, may serve to give an idea of his educational 
creed : 



Principles in 
his How Ger- 
trude. 



"i. Observation is the foundation of instruction. 

"2. Language must be connected with observation. 

"3. The time for learning is not the time for judgment and 
criticism. 

"4. In each branch, instruction must begin with the simplest 
elements, and proceed gradually by following the child's develop- 
ment; that is, by a series of steps which are psychologically con- 
nected. 




I'^ig- 53-' 



4. ' 



^Father' Pestalo//i at Stanz. (The orphan school in the 
UrsuHne convent). 



... ^ 


T T T T T T 1 IT 


11 II II D II 1 II 11 11 11 




1 T TIIT ITir T 1 I 


11 HI 11 111 nil li 11 111 nil 1 1 




111 1 1 1 1 11 11 1 1 111 Hill 1 1 1 1 II 11 


mill 1 1 mill! 1 nil 111 1 nil I mill 11 1 1 




1 11 1 1 1 Ul 1 1 lull 1 UU 111 11 111 1 1 nil 1 1 1 I 111 III III t 



Fig. 34.— The 'table of units' of Pestalozzi, copied by Warren Colburn 
in the first edition (1821) of his Menial Arithmetic. 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 283 

"5. A pause must be made at each stage of the instruction suflS- 
ciently long for the child to get the new matter thoroughly into 
his grasp and under his control. 

" 6. Teaching must follow the path of development, and not 
that of dogmatic exposition." 

The ' Institute ' at Yverdon and the Culmination of 
the Pestalozzian Methods. — As a result of political 
changes, Pestalozzi was obliged in 1805 to transfer his 
school to Yverdon. The 'institute' here sprang into 
fame almost immediately, and increased in numbers 
and prosperity for several years. Children were sent Gre^atpros- 
from great distances, and teachers and visitors thronged 
there to learn and apply the new principles at home. 
The work of the institute formed a continuation and 
culmination of the observational methods started at 
Stanz and Burgdorf. The simplification introduced 
through the ' syllabaries ' and ' table of units ' was further and^tab"e?of 
elaborated. A 'table of fractions' was also devised H""^^' H*^; 

tions, and irac- 

for teaching that subject concretely. It consisted of a tjonsoffrac- 
series of squares, which could be divided indefinitely 
and in different ways. Some of the squares were whole, 
while others were divided horizontally into two, three, 
or even ten equal parts. There was further developed a 
'table of fractions of fractions,' or compound fractions, 
in which the squares were divided, not only horizontally, 
but vertically, so that the method of reducing two frac- 
tions to the same denominator might be self-evident. 

Further, in order to draw and write, the pupil was ^'■^^^^S' 

■first taught the simple elements of form. Objects, such 

as sticks or pencils, were placed in different directions, 

and lines representing them were drawn on the board or 

slate until all elementary forms, straight or curved, were 



and construc- 
tive geometry; 



284 A student's history of education 

mastered. The pupils combined these elements, instead 
of copying models, and were encouraged to design 
symmetrical and graceful figures. This also paved the 
writme, y^^y Jqj. -yynting. The children wrote on their slates, 

beginning with the easiest letters and gradually forming 
words from them, but soon learned to write on paper with 
a pen. Writing was, however, taught in connection with 
reading, although begun somewhat later than that 
study. Constructive geometry was also learned through 
drawing. The pupils were taught to distinguish, first 
vertical, horizontal, oblique, and parallel lines; then they 
learned right, acute, and obtuse angles, difi'erent kinds of 
triangles, quadrilaterals, and other figures; and finally 
discovered at how many points a certain number of 
straight lines may be made to cut one another, and how 
many angles, triangles, and quadrilaterals can be formed. 
To make the matter concrete, the figures were often cut 
out of cardboard or made into models, 
and""^^ ^^^'^^ ^^ nature study, geography, and history the concrete 
raphy; obscrvational work was hkewise continued. Trees, 

flowers, and birds were viewed, drawn, and discussed. 
The pupils began in geography by acquiring the points of 
the compass and relative positions, and from this knowl- 
edge observed and described some familiar place. The 
valley of the Buron near at hand was observed in detail 
and modeled upon long tables in clay brought from its 
^ ■' sides. Then the pupils were shown the map for the firsty 
time and easily grasped the meaning of its symbols. 
His ideas on geography, however, were more fully worked 
out by the scientist, Karl Ritter, who had already been 
trained in principles similar to Pestalozzi's in Salzmann's 
school at Schnepfenthal (see p. 228). Instead of the 



\ 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 285 



"arbitrary and unmethodical collection of all facts ascer- 
tained to exist throughout the earth," which constituted 
the old 'encyclopaedic' type of geography, Ritter pre- 
sented a work based on principles indicated by the title, — 
The Science of the Earth in Relation to Nature and the 
History of Man. Similarly, Pestalozzi's method was 
applied to music by his friend, Nageli, a noted Swiss com- and music, 
poser, who began with the simplest tone elements and 
then combined and developed these progressively into 
more complex and connected wholes. 

Pestalozzi's Educational Aim and Organization. — 
From the beginning of his work, Pestalozzi held that 
"all the beneficent powers of man are due to neither 
art nor chance, but to nature," and thalfeducation should 
follow "the course laid down by nature." So in all his 
works he constantly returns to the analogy of the child's ^"^de^ei^p^^ 
development with that of the natural growth of the ™^*^ °* ** 
plant or tree. He even holds that "the whole tree is an 
uninterrupted chain of organic parts, the plan of which 
existed in its seed and root," and that *'man is similar to 
the tree." Consequently, he defines education as "the 
natural, progressive, and harmonious development of all 
the powers and capacities of the human being." This 
belief in the observance of development from within is 
in keeping with the naturalism of Rousseau, but that 
reformer viewed it chiefly from the negative side, and 
failed to make his educational doctrine concrete and ex- 
plicit and to apply it to the school. Pestalozzi further 
modified and extended the Roussehan doctrine by 
recommending its application to all children, whatever 
their circumstances and abihties. Where Rousseau 
evidently had only the young aristocrat in mind in the 



286 A student's history of education 

Universal education of Emile, Pestalozzi held that poverty could 

education. 

be relieved and society reformed only through ridding 
each and every one of his degradation by means of men- 
tal and moral development. Accordingly, he was the 
stanch advocate of universal education. 

His General Method. — Pestalozzi's general method 
of giving free play to this natural development of the 
powers of all and so for reforming social conditions was 
to train his pupils through 'observation.' He felt that 

Clear ideas only i-j ijrr jii. t c ^ 

through sense Clear ideas could be formed only by means of careful 
perceptions, ggnse perceptions, and he was thoroughly opposed to the 
mechanical memorizing with little understanding that 
was current in the schools of the day. His method in 
general consisted in analyzing each subject into its sim- 
plesTterrns!"^ plcst elements, or 'A B C,' and developing it by graded 
fn wor^ds!'^^^^'^ exercises based as far as possible upon the study of ob- 
jects rather than words. Yet Pestalozzi felt that "ex- 
periences must be clearly expressed in words, or otherwise 
there arises the same danger that characterizes the dom- 
inant word teaching, — that of attributing entirely er- 
roneous ideas to words." Accordingly, as shown in the 
summary of How Gertrude Teaches Her Children (see 
p. 282), in all instruction he would connect language 
with 'observation.' The special applications of this gen- 
eral method that were worked out by him and his fol- 
lowers in the most common subjects of the curriculum 
have been described in detail in the account of his work 
at Stanz, Burgdorf, and Yverdon, and do not require 
repetition here. 

The Permanent Influence of Pestalozzi. — It is easy 
to exaggerate the achievements of this almost sainted 
reformer of Switzerland. Pestalozzi's methods were 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 287 

neither very original nor well carried out. His chief un'^praftki, 
merit lay in developing and making positive the sugges- '°^°|^Q^^i°^' 
tions offered by Rousseau, and in utiUzing them in the science and 

. organization; 

work of the schools. Even in this he failed somewhat 
in practicality and consistency. Moreover, Pestalozzi 
was groping and never possessed full vision. He did 
not grasp definite educational principles in a scientific 
way, but, like Rousseau, obtained his ideas of teaching 
from sympathetic insight into the minds of children. 
His writings for the most part record his empirical efforts 
at an effective training, and are revelations of methods 
of teaching in the concrete rather than the abstract. His 
works are also poorly arranged and inaccurate, and 
there was little organization or order in his schools. 

But all these deficiencies are of small import when 
compared with Pestalozzi's influence upon society and f'ut sought to 

•■^ _ *■ elevate society 

education. In the eighteenth century caste ruled through by education, 
wealth and education, while the masses, who supported 
the owners of the land in idleness and luxury, were sunk 
in ignorance, poverty, and vice. The schools for the 
common people were exceedingly few, the content of 
education was largely limited by ecclesiastical authority, 
and the methods were traditional and verbal. The 
teachers generally had received httle training, and were 
selected at random. Ordinarily the pay was wretched, 
no lodgings were provided for the teacher, and he had 
often to add domestic service to his duties, in order to 
secure food and clothing. In the midst of such conditions 
appeared this most famous of modern educators, who 
never ceased to work for the reformation of society. 
As Voltaire, Rousseau, and others had held that the 
panacea for the corrupt times was rationaHsm, atheism, 



288 A student's history of education 

deism, socialism, anarchy, or individualism, Pestalozzi 
found his remedy in education. Like Rousseau, he 
keenly felt the injustice, unnaturalness, and degradation 
of the existing society, but he was not content to stop 
with mere destruction and negations. He saw what 
education might do to purify social conditions and to 
elevate the people by intellectual, moral, and industrial 
training, and he longed to apply it universally and to 
develop methods in keeping with nature. 

Pestalozzi's achievements contained the germ of 
progenitor of modem pedagogy, as well as of educational reform. It 
pedagogy.^^ was he that stimulated educational theorists, instead of 
accepting formal principles and traditional processes, 
to work out carefully and patiently the development of 
the child mind and to embody the results in practice. 
From him have come the prevailing reforms in the pres- 
ent teaching of language lessons, arithmetic, drawing, 
writing, reading, geography, elementary science, and 
music. In harmony with his improved methods, Pesta- 
lozzi also started a different type of disciphne. His work 
made clear the new spirit in the school by which it has 
approached the atmosphere of the home. He found the 
proper relation of pupil and teacher to exist in sympathy 
and friendship, or, as he states it, in 'love.' This atti- 
tude, which appears so fully in his kindly treatment of 
the poor children at Neuhof and Stanz (Fig. 33), 
constituted the greatest contrast to that of the brutal 
schools of the times, and introduced a new conception 
into education. 

The Spread of Pestalozzian Schools and Methods 
through Europe. — The 'observational' methods of Pesta- 
lozzi and institutions similar to his were soon spread by 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 289 

his assistants and others throughout Europe. Strange 
to say, as a result of their familiarity with his weaknesses 
and the conservatism resulting from isolation, the Swiss 
were, as a whole, rather slow to incorporate the Pesta- 
lozzian improvements. In Zurich, however, Zeller of 
Wiirtemberg, who had visited Burgdorf and had helped 
conduct a Pestalozzian training school, was early invited Switzerland, 
to give three courses of lectures in aid of the establish- 
ment of a teachers' seminary based upon the principles 
of Pestalozzi. Kriisi, after leaving the institute at Yver- 
don, also founded a number of schools and carried Pesta- 
lozzianism into various parts of Switzerland. And other 
disciples eventually started or reorganized schools in 
various parts of Switzerland. 

But the Pestalozzian reforms in method secured their 
best hold upon Germany. The innovations were most 
remarkable in Prussia, and the elementary education Prussia 
there has come to be referred to as the ' Prussian-Pesta- 
lozzian school system.' By the opening of the nine- 
teenth century Pestalozzianism began to find its way 
into that state. In 1801 the appeal of Pestalozzi for a 
public subscription in behalf of his project at Burgdorf 
was warmly supported. In 1802 Herbart's account of 
Pestalozzi' s Idea of an A B C of Observation (see p. 337) 
attracted much attention. A representative was sent 
from Prussia to Burgdorf to report upon the new system 
in 1803. Meanwhile the Pestalozzian missionaries were 
fast converting the land. Plamann, who had visited 
Burgdorf, in 1805 estabHshed a Pestalozzian school in 
Berlin, and published several books applying the new 
methods to language, geography, and natural history. 
Zeller lectured to large audiences at Konigsberg, and 



2qO A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

organized a Pestalozzian orphanage there. A similar 
institution for educating orphans was opened at Potsdam 
by Tiirck. In 1808, two of Pestalozzi's pupils, Nicolovius 
and Siivern, were made directors of public instruction 
in Prussia, and sent seventeen brilliant young men to 
Yverdon to study for three years. Upon their return 
these vigorous youthful educators zealously advanced the 
cause. The greatest impulse, however, was given the 
movement by the philosopher, Fichte, who was ardently 
supported by King Frederick William III, and even 
more by the noble queen, Louise. They held that only 
through these advanced educational principles could a 
restoration of the territory and prestige lost to Napoleon 
at Jena be effected, 
and the rest of A similar spirit animated the other states of Germany, 

Germany, . 

and Bavaria, Detmold, and other states early undertook 
to introduce the new principles. Everywhere in Germany 
the greatest enthusiasm prevailed among teachers, state 
officials, and princes. Thus in place of the reading, 
singing, and memorizing of texts, songs, and catechism, 
under the direction of incompetent choristers and sex- 
tons, with unsanitary buildings and brutal punishment, 
all Germany has come to have in each village an institu- 
tion for training real men and women. Each school 
is under the guidance of a devoted, humane, and trained 
teacher, and the methods in religion, reading, arithmetic, 
history, geography, and elementary science are vitalized 
and interesting. 
P^^^ In France the spread of Pestalozzianism was at first 

prevented by the military spirit of the time and by the 
apathy in education, and later, when the reaction oc- 
curred, the schools came under ecclesiastical control and 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 29I 

had little influence upon the people. Nevertheless, there 
were evidences of interest in the new doctrines. General 
Jullien came to Yverdon to study the methods, and 
issued two commendatory reports, which induced some 
thirty French pupils to go to Pestalozzi's institute. 
Chavannes also published a treatise upon the Pesta- 
lozzian methods in 1805. These efforts, however, had 
little effect upon education, and the Pestalozzian prin- 
ciples did not make much headway in France up to the 
revolution of 1830. After that time they rapidly became 
popular, especially through Victor Cousin. This famous 
professor, who was later minister of public instruction, 
issued in 1835 a Report on the State of Public Instruction 
in Prussia, which showed the great merit of Pestaloz- 
zianism in the elementary schools of that country. 

In England the influence of Pestalozzi was large, but and England, 
the use made of his methods was not altogether happy. 
The private school opened by Mayo after his return from 
Yverdon employed object teaching in several subjects, 
and a popular text-book, entitled Lessons on Objects, was 
written by his sister. This book of Elizabeth Mayo 
consisted of encyclopaedic lessons on the arts and sciences 
arranged in a definite series, and much beyond the com- 
prehension of children from six to eight years old, for 
whom it was intended. Together with several texts of 
a similar sort, it had a wide influence in formalizing 
object teaching and spreading it rapidly. The Mayos 
were also interested in infant schools, and when they 
helped organize 'The Home and Colonial School Society' 
in 1836, they combined the Pestalozzian methods with 
those of the infant school (see p. 246). Through the 
model and training schools of this society, formalized 



292 



A student's history of education 



McClure and 
Neef. 



Griscom 



Pestalozzianism was extended through England and 
America. 

Pestalozzianism in the United States. — Pestalozzian- 
ism began to appear in the United States as eariy as the 
first decade of the nineteenth century. It was introduced 
not only from the original centers in Switzerland, but in- 
directly in the form it had assumed in Germany, France, 
England, and other countries. The instances of its ap- 
pearance were sporadic and seem to have been but little 
connected at any time. The earHest presentation was 
that made from the treatise of Chavannes in 1805 by 
William McClure. By this and other articles, McClure 
did much to make the new principles known in the 
United States, and in 1806 he induced Joseph Neef, a 
former assistant of Pestalozzi, to come to America and 
become his "master's apostle in the New World." Neef 
maintained an institution at Philadelphia for three years 
and afterward founded and taught schools in other parts 
of the country. But his imperfect acquaintance with 
English and with American character and his frequent 
migrations prevented his personal influence from being 
greatly felt, and the two excellent works that he published 
upon applications of the Pestalozzian methods were 
given scant attention. 

A large variety of literature, describing the new educa- 
tion, and translating the accounts of Chavannes, Jullien, 
Cousin, and a number of the German educationalists, 
was also published in educational journals, which were 
just beginning to appear in the United States (see p. 304). 
Returned travelers, like Professor John Griscom (see 
p. 305) published accounts of their visits and experiences 
at Yverdon and Burgdorf, such lecturers as the Reverend 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 293 

Charles Brooks began to suggest the new principles as Brooks, 
a remedy for our educational deficiencies, and educa- 
tional reformers, like the Alcotts, began to show the t^eAlcotts, 
Pestalozzian spirit in their schools. Pestalozzi's objec- 
tive methods and the oral instruction resulting from 
them were used in various subjects by a number of edu- 
cators. For example, the methods advocated in arith- 
metic were introduced into America by Warren Colburn. Co'^'^™' 
He spread 'mental arithmetic' throughout the country, 
and in his famous First Lessons in Arithmetic on the Plan 
of Pestalozzi, published first in 182 1, he even printed the 
'table of units' (Fig. 34). The Pestalozzi-Ritter method 
in geography was early presented in the United States 
through the institute lectures and text-books of Arnold 
Guyot, who had been a pupil of Ritter and came to Guyot, 
America from Switzerland in 1848. The promotion of 
geographic method along the same lines was later more 
successfully performed by Francis Wayland Parker, ^"'^^» 
who had studied with Guyot, in his training of teachers 
and his work on How to Teach Geography. Colonel Parker 
has also had several successful pupils, who are to-day 
largely continuing the Pestalozzian tradition. The 
Pestalozzian method in music was brought into the 

and Lowell 

Boston schools and elsewhere about 1836 by Lowell Mason. 
Mason, who was influenced by the works of Nageli. 

The most influential propaganda of the Pestalozzian 
doctrines in general, however, came through the account 
of the German school methods in the Seventh Annual 
Report (1843) of Horace Mann (see p. 308), and through 
the inauguration of the ' Oswego methods ' by Dr. Edward 
A. Sheldon. Mann spoke most enthusiastically of the felmihlLual 
success of the Prussian-Pestalozzian system of education R«P<"-t; 



294 A student's history of education 

and hinted at the need of a radical reform along the same 
lines in America. The report caused a great sensation, 
and was bitterly combated by conservative sentiment 
throughout the country, but the suggested reforms were 
largely effected. Dr. Sheldon, on the other hand, caught 
his Pestalozzian inspiration from Toronto, Canada, 
the Oswego where he became acquainted with the formaHzed methods 
o ject essons. ^^ ^^^ Mayos through publications of the Home and 

Colonial School Society (see p. 291). He resolved to 
introduce the principles of Pestalozzi into the Oswego 
schools, of which he was at that time superintendent, 
and in 1861 secured from the society in London an in- 
structor to train his teachers in these methods. There 
was some criticism of the Oswego methods on the ground 
of formalism, but as a whole they were pronounced a 
success, and in 1865 the Oswego training school was made 
a state institution. This was the first normal school in 
the United States where 'object lessons' were the chief 
feature, but a large number of other normal schools 
upon the same basis sprang up rapidly in many states, 
and the Oswego methods crept into the training schools 
and the public systems of numerous cities. As a conse- 
quence, during the third quarter of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, Pestalozzianism, though somewhat formalized, had 
a prevaihng influence upon the teachers and courses of 
the elementary schools in the United States. 

Pestalozzi's Industrial Training Continued by Fellen- 
berg. — Such was the wide influence of Pestalozzi upon 
education. But while throughout his work he continued 
to make new applications of his observational methods, 
his principle of combining industrial training with in- 
tellectual education, which he had begun so successfully 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 295 

at Neuhof and Stanz, could not be continued at Burg- 
dorf. His pupils there came chiefly from aristocratic 
families and were not obliged to support themselves by 
manual labor. However, Pestalozzi still hoped to save 
enough of the income from the school payments of the 
rich to found a small agricultural school for the poor on 
this plan and connect it with the 'institute,' and while 
this institution was never started, the opportunity for 
carrying out his aim came through his friend, Emanuel 
von Fellenberg (i 771-1844). Fellenberg belonged to a 
noble family of Berne, but, like Pestalozzi, he beheved 
that an amelioration of the wretched moral and economic 
conditions in Switzerland should be accompUshed by edu- 
cation. To secure the means for an experiment in this 
direction, he persuaded his father to purchase for him 
an estate of six hundred acres at Hofwyl, just nine miles Hof^i^to 
from Burgdorf . Here Pestalozzi urged him to undertake 'r^i° Pestaioz- 

° _ ^ " ^ ^ ziasx teachers. 

his favorite idea of industrial education, and in 1806, 
with the aid of Zeller (see p. 289), who had been sent 
him by Pestalozzi, he opened a school to train teachers 
in the Pestalozzian method. 

The Agricultural School and Other Institutions at 
Hofwyl. — Fellenberg especially desired, however, to 
combine Pestalozzi's observational work and his older of°^^e"va°° 
principle of industrial training in an 'agricultural insti- ^nd Industrial 
tute' for poor boys. This plan was not fully reaHzed training in the 

^ •' ^ ^ ■' ^ 'agricultural 

until 1808, when he secured the enthusiastic Jacob institute;' 
Wehrli as an assistant. The work was so arranged that 
each old pupil, as fast as he was trained, took charge 
of a newer one as an apprentice, and the school from the 
first became a sort of family. The chief feature of the 
institute was agricultural occupations, including drain- 



296 A student's history of education 

age and irrigation, but, from the requirements of farm 
life, it was natural to train also cartmakers, blacksmiths, 
carpenters, locksmiths, shoemakers, tailors, mechanics, 
and workers in wood, iron, and leather. Workshops for 
these industries were established upon the estate, and 
the pupils in the agricultural institute were enabled to 
select a training in a wide range of employments, with- 
out neglecting book instruction (Fig. 35). By this means, 
too, they could support themselves by their labor while 
being educated. Through the institute also, a consider- 
able number of the pupils were trained to be directors 
of similar institutions, or to become rural school-teachers. 
Fellenberg thought it important that all who were to 
teach in the common schools should have a thorough 
acquaintance with the practical labor of a farm, the 
means of self-support, and the hfe and habits of the ma- 
jority of their pupils. 

But the work of Fellenberg did not stop there. From 
the beginning he had felt that the wealthy should under- 
stand and be more in sympathy with the laboring classes, 
and learn how to direct their work more intelligently. 
Hence he began very early an agricultural course for 
landowners, and many young men of the wealthy classes 
came to show a striking interest in his deep-soil plough- 
ing, draining, irrigation, and other means of educating 
the poor. But these wealthier youths remained at the 
institute so short a time that he could not extend his 
ideals very widely. To retain them longer at Hofwyl, 
the 'Uterary j^ igoQ he Opened a 'literary institute,' which, besides 

institute for . . . . 

the wealthy; the usual academic studies, used Pestalozzi's object les- 
sons and strove to develop physical activities. More- 
over, the pupils in the Uterary institute had to cultivate 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 297 

gardens, work on the farm, engage in carpentering, 
turning, and other mechanical occupations, and in many 
ways come into touch and mutual understanding with 
the poorer boys in the agricultural institute. The 
wealthy learned to dignify labor, and the poor, instead 
of envying those in the higher stations of hfe, became 
friendly and desirous of cooperating with them. Even- 
tually there arose an independent community of youth, 
managing its own affairs outside of school, arranging its 
own occupations, games, and tours, choosing its own 
officers, and making its own laws. Within this little 
world was provided a training for society at large, with 
its various classes, associations, and corporations, which 
Fellenberg seems to have regarded as divinely ordained. 
Likewise, in 1823, a school for poor girls was opened by ^*^ris° and^ ^^ 
his wife, and four years later he started a 'real,' or prac- s^^?°'' ^°^ *^^ 

^ ^ middle Cmsses. 

tical, school for the middle classes, which was mter- 
mediate between the two 'institutes.' 

Industrial Training in the Schools of Europe. — The 
educational institutions of Fellenberg (Fig. 36) were well 
managed and proved very successful, and the idea of edu- 
cation through industrial training spread rapidly. While, 
after the death of Fellenberg in 1844, the schools at 
Hofwyl gradually dechned, various types of industrial 
education everywhere came to supplement academic 
courses, and extend the work of the school to a larger 
number of pupils. Thus the tendency of modern civiUza- 
tion to care for the education of the poor, the defective, 
and the deHnquent through industrial training has sprung 
from the philanthropic spirit of Pestalozzi and his prac- 
tical collaborator, Fellenberg, and has become apparent in 
all advanced countries. Industrial institutions rapidly in- 



298 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Switzerland, 



Germany, 



France, and 
England. 



'Manual labor' 
institutions. 



creased in Switzerland, beginning in 18 16 with the school 
in the neighboring district of Meykirch. In 1832 a can- 
tonal teachers' association was formed at Berne, with 
Fellenberg as president and Wehrli as vice president, and 
every canton soon had its ' farm school.' Industrial train- 
ing was also introduced into most of the Swiss normal 
schools. In Germany the industrial work suggested by 
Pestalozzi and Fellenberg came into successful operation 
in many of the orphanages and most of the reform schools. 
Later, industrial education was taken up by the Forthild- 
ungsschulen (' continuation schools ') of the regular system 
(see p. 420). At the reform and continuation schools of 
France industrial training has long formed the distinc- 
tive element in the course. Educators and statesmen of 
England hkewise early commended the work of Fellen- 
berg, and industrial training shortly found a foot- 
hold in various technical and reform schools of that 
country. 

Industrial Institutions in the United States. — The in- 
dustrial work of the Pestalozzi-Fellenberg system also 
began to appear in the United States about the close of 
the first quarter of the nineteenth century. After that, 
for twenty years or so, there sprang up a large number of 
institutions of secondary or higher grade with 'manual 
labor' features in addition to the literary work. The 
primary object of the industrial work in these institu- 
tions was to enable students to earn their way through 
school or college and at the same time secure physical 
exercise. It was the first serious academic recognition 
of the need of a 'sound mind in a sound body,' and did 
much to overcome the prevailing tendency of students 
toward tuberculosis and to furnish a sane substitute for 



Fellenberg's Institutions at Hofwyl 




Fig- 35- — Court of the Agricultural Institute. 




Fig. 36. — General view of all the schools and workshops. 
(Reproduced by permission from Monroe's Encyclopedia 0/ Education.) 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 299 

the escapades and pranks in which college Hfe abounded. 
The first of these manual labor institutions were estab- 
lished in the New England and Middle states between 
1820 and 1830, but within a dozen years the manual 
labor system was adopted in theological schools, colleges, 
and academies from Maine to Tennessee. The success 
of this feature at Andover Theological Seminary, where 
it was begun in 1826 for 'invigorating and preserving 
health, without any reference to pecuniary profit,' was 
especially influential in causing it to be extended. The 
' Society for Promoting Manual Labor in Literary Insti- 
tutions,' founded in 183 1, appointed a general agent to 
visit the chief colleges in the Middle West and South, 
call attention to the value of manual labor, and issue a 
report upon the subject. Little attention, however, was 
given to the pedagogical principles underlying this work. 
As material conditions improved and fornial social life de- 
veloped, the impracticability of the scheme was reahzed, 
and the industrial side of these institutions was given 
up. The physical exercise phase was then replaced by 
college athletics. By 1840-1850 most of the schools and 
colleges that began as 'manual labor institutes' had 
become purely literary. 
A further movement in industrial education has been industrial 

education for 

found in the establishment of such schools as Carlisle, racial prob- 
Hampton, and Tuskegee, which adopted this training refoim, 
as a solution for peculiar racial problems. But the orig- 
inal idea of Pestalozzi, to secure redemption through 
manual labor, has been embodied in American institu- 
tions since 1873, when Miss Mary Carpenter, the Eng- 
lish prison reformer, visited the United States. Contract 
labor and factory work in the reformatories then began 



300 A student's history of education 

to be replaced by farming, gardening, and kindred do- 
mestic industries. At the present time, moreover, the 
delinquents, schools for deHnquents and defectives in the New Eng- 
land, Middle Atlantic, Middle West, and most of the 
Southern states, have the Fellenberg training, though 
without much grasp of the educational principles in- 
volved. Finally, there has also been a growing tendency 
in the twentieth century to employ industrial training 
or trade education for the sake of holding pupils longer 
of"the^mibik'^^ ^^ school and increasing the efficiency of the public sys- 
system. ^-gj^. In SO far as it has tended to replace the more 

general values of manual training, once so popular, with 
skill in some particular industrial process, this modern 
movement represents a return from the occupational 
work started by Froebel to the philanthropic practice of 
Fellenberg and Pestalozzi. 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. V; and 
Great Educators (Macmillan, 191 2), chap. IX; Monroe, Textbook 
(Macmillan, 1905), pp. 597-622; Parker, Modern Elementary Edu- 
cation (Ginn, 191 2), chaps. XIII-XVI. The Leonard and Gertrude 
has been well arranged for English readers in the edition of Eva 
Channing (Heath, 1896) and How Gertrude Teaches Her Children 
has been translated by Lucy E. Holland and Frances C. Turner 
(Bardeen, 1898). The standard English treatises on Pestalozzi 
are Guimps, R. de, Pestalozzi, His Aim and Work (Appleton, 1890) ; 
Holman, H., Pestalozzi (Longmans, 1908); Kriisi, H., Pestalozzi, 
His Life, Work, and Influence (American Book Co., 1875); Pin- 
loche. A., Pestalozzi and the Foundation of the Modern Elementary 
School (Scribner, 1901), and, more recently. Green, J. A., Life 
and Work of Pestalozzi (Clive, London, 1913) and Pestalozzi's 
Educational Writings (Longmans, Green, 1912). Monroe, W. S., 



OBSERVATION AND INDUSTRIAL TRAINING 3OI 

has furnished an interesting History of the Pestalozzian Movement 
in the United States (Bardeen, 1907). The Institutions of De Fellen- 
berg were fully described by King, W. (London, 1842); and by 
Barnard, H., in his American Journal of Education, vol. Ill, 
PP- 591-596; XIII, 323-331; and XXVI, 359-368. 



CHAPTER XXm 

DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE 
UNITED STATES 

OUTLINE 

During the second quarter of the nineteenth century a third 
period in the educational history of America, marked by further 
democratization and a great expansion of public education, ap- 
peared. 

It began with an awakening generally known as ' the revival of 
common schools,' which was most noticeable in New England. 
Here, owing to the attacks made upon him by reactionaries, 
Horace Mann was the most conspicuous reformer; while Henry 
Barnard, through his American Journal of Education, enabled 
educators to look beyond the educational experience of America. 
But the influence of this awakening was also felt in every other 
section of the United States. 

It was followed by a steady growth in universal education, state 
support and control, local supervision, artd the organization of 
normal schools in New England and the Middle states. 

In the Northwest, common school advocates overcame the op- 
position of settlers from states not committed to pubHc education, 
and in the further expansion of the United States progress in com- 
mon school sentiment has kept pace with the settlement of the 
country. 

The South made considerable progress during the early years 
of the awakening, and while the Civil War crushed its educational 
facilities, the struggle for public education has since been won. 

The Third Period in American Education. — Interest 
in the improved methods of Pestalozzi and other re- 

302 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 303 

formers that was manifesting itself everywhere in the 
United States during the second quarter of the nine- 
teenth century seems to have been but one phase of a 
much larger movement. It was about this time that a 
third period in American education, which was marked 
by the development of democratic ideals and the exten- Development 

^ ^ ^ _ of democratic 

sion of state systems of public schools, may be said to ideals and ex- 

. ,.,. tension of state 

have begun. Durmg the period of transition, we found systems of 

sciiools 

(chap. XXI), half a dozen of the states had started an 
organization of common schools, and in a dozen others 
permanent school funds had been established, an in- 
fluential minority of leading citizens were constantly 
advocating universal education, and public interest in 
the matter was evidently increasing But the consum- 
mation of a regular system was still much hindered by 
sectarian jealousies, by the conception of public schools 
as institutions for paupers and the consequent custom of 
allowing private schools to share in public funds, by the 
unwillingness of the wealthy to be taxed locally for the 
benefit of other people's children, and, in New England, 
by the division of the system into autonomous districts 
and the interference of petty politics. Hence, while 
much progress had been made since the early days of 
'transplantation' of European ideals and institutions, 
there was still much need of the expansion and further 
democratization that now began to appear. Of the rapid 
development that took place during this final period of 
Americanization, much was accomplished before the 
middle of the nineteenth century, but educational prog- 
ress continued through the final decade. 

Early Leaders in the Common School Revival. — The 
educational awakening with which the beginning of this 



3^4 A student's history of education 

third period seems to be marked, has been generally 
Storm center known as ' the common school revival.' It first became 

of revival in 

Massachusetts evident during the latter part of the decade between 

and Connecti- i i , . • ■» *■ i 

cut. 1830 and 1840, and had its storm center m Massachusetts 

and Connecticut. While it greatly furthered the cause 
of pubhc education everywhere, because of the decadence 
into which New England had fallen, the demand for an 
educational awakening was strongest there. In this 
revival the most conspicuous figure was probably Horace 
Mann, but there were several leaders in the field before 
him, many were contemporaneous, and the work was 
expanded and deepened by others of distinction long 
after he withdrew from the scene. For a score of years 
before Mann appeared, definite preparation for the 
movement had been in progress, and the labors of the 
individuals and associations engaged in these endeavors 
tabiish a train- should be briefly noted. Many of the reformers seem 
ing institution. ^^ have recommended an improvement in methods 
through the creation of an institution for training teach- 
ers, thus anticipating one of the greatest achievements 
of Mann. Actual attempts at a private normal schoo! 
were even made by the Reverend Samuel R. I^^ at 
Concord, Vermont (1823), Andover, Massachusetts 
(1830), and Plymouth, New Hampshire (1837). 

A number of educational journals, moreover, pub- 
lished articles on schoolbooks, the methods of Lancaster, 
Pestalozzi, Neef, and Fellenberg, the infant and Sunday 
Articles in schools, physical education, European school systems, 
journals. and a variety of other timely topics and reforms. Among 

these progressive pubUcations were the American Jour- 
nal of Education, edited by William Russell from 1826- 
1830, and then continued from 183 1 to 1839, as the 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 305 

American Annals of Education under the editorship of 
William C. Woodbridge, and the Quarterly Register, 
published 1 828-1 843 by the 'American Educational 
Society.' The latest European ideas were also reported 
from first-hand observation by a number who had gone 
abroad to investigate. The most influential of these 
reports was A Year in Europe, written in 18 19 by Pro- Europe^n"^ 
fessor John Griscom (see p. 292), who was a lecturer education, 
before several New York associations, including the 
Public School Society. Almost as widely read were the 
reports of William C. Woodbridge in 1824, and of Pro- 
fessor Calvin E. Stowe of Lane Theological Seminary, 
Cincinnati, in 1836. 

Work of James G. Carter. — All these movements in- 
dicate the educational ferment that was going on. But 
the predecessor of Mann, who accomplished most for 
the common schools, and influenced that reformer most 
'directly, was James G. Carter (1795-1849). Carter 
(Fig. 37) was a practical teacher and wrote continually on no^^s^oois 
the need of a trainingliistitutlon'to impfov einstruction 
in the pubHc schools. ^Thesu appualb proved very suc- 
cessful, and earned him the title of ' father of the normal 
schools.' After being elected to the~ legislature, he ac- 
complished much by his zeal and skill in parliamentary 
tactics. In 1826 he secured an act by which each town and secured 

, , • 1 , 1 1 '^ i town school 

as a whole was required to choose a regular committee, committees, 
instead of the ministers and selectmen, to supervise the 
schools, choose text-books, and examine, certify, and 
employ the teachers. But the effect of this enactment 
was largely lost the following year by allowing the dis- 
tricts, as a compromise, to choose a committeeman, 
who should appoint the teachers. In 1826 he placed 



IV 



3o6 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



and the State 
Board of 
Education. 



support of high secondary education, then largely conducted by acade- 
mies, more under public control through a law requiring 
each town of five hundred f amihes to support a free Eng- 
lish high school (Fig. 41), and every one of four thousand 
inhabitants to maintain a classical high school. Next, 
in 1834, Carter succeeded in getting a state school fund 
established from the proceeds of the sale of lands in the 
province of Maine and the state's claims against the 
federal government for military services. But his most 
fruitful victory was won in 1837, when he procured the 
passage of the bill for a State Board of Education, after 
it had been once defeated, by inducing the house to 
discuss it in 'committee of the whole.' 
_ Horace Mann as Secretary of the Massachusetts 
Board. — By reason of his merits as an educator, his 
persistent efforts in behalf of educational reform, and his 
advocacy of the bill, it was assumed by most people that 
Carter would be chosen secretary of the new board. To 
their surprise, a lawyer named Horace Mann (1796- 
1859), ^t that time president of the senate, was selected 
for the post, but the choice is now known to have been 
most fortunate. By both heredity and training Mann 
(Fig. 38) was suffused with an interest in humanity and 
all phases of philanthropy and education. He possessed 
a happy combination of lofty ideals, intelUgence, courage, 
enthusiasm, and legislative experience, which equipped 
him admirably for leadership in educational reform. The 
law proposed for the new Board of Education numerous 
duties in the way of collecting and spreading information 
concerning the common schools and of making sugges- 
tions for the improvement and extension of public educa- 
tion, but it provided no real powers, and the permanence 



Peculiarly 
fitted by 
heredity and 
training. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 307 

and influence of the board depended almost wholly 
upon the intelligence and character of the new Secretary. 
During his twelve years in the ofSce, Mann subserved 
the interests of the state most faithfully. To awaken 
the people, he made an educational campaign through Effected his 
every portion of the state each year, but an even more educational 
effective means of disseminating his reforms was found 
in his series of Annual Reports. These documents were "^"pg^f^^ 
by law to give information concerning existing conditions 
and the progress made in the efficiency of public educa- 
tion each year, and they deal with practically every 
educational topic of importance at the time. Sometimes 
they seem commonplace, but it must be remembered 
that they were not so then, and that the work of Mann 
did much to render them familiar. They vitally affected 
school conditions everywhere in New England, and 
were read with great interest in all parts of the United 
States, and even in Europe. He also published semi- 
monthly the Massachusetts Common School Journal, to ^''""'^ Journal, 
spread information concerning school improvement, 
school law, and the proceedings of the State Board. But 
it consisted of only sixteen pages, and was not as valuable 
as some of the educational journals that had preceded it 
(see pp. 304 f.). Another medium in the improvement of 
educational facilities was Mann's general establishment 
of school Hbraries by state subsidy throughout Massa- school U- 
chusetts. But probably the most permanent means of 
propagating his reforms came through securing the 
foundation of the first public normal schools in this 
country. Massachusetts was in 1838 induced to estab- ^al ^*hoois"°^' 
lish three schools, so located that all parts of the state 
might be equally served. The course in each school con- 



3o8 A student's history of education 

sisted in a review of the common branches from the 
teaching point of view, work in educational theory, 
and training in a practice school under supervision, and, 
while not largely attended, these institutions were a great 
success from the start. 

The arduous and unremitting labors of Mann in in- 
stituting and promoting the various means of school 
reform made the greatest inroad upon his strength and 
financial resources. Moreover, he was for years violently 
assailed by reactionaries of all types. His controversy 

Bortcfn^schooi- '^^^^ ^^^ Boston schoolmasters was especially sharp. 

masters, Mann's Seventh Annual Report (1843) gave an account of 

his visit to foreign schools, especially those of Germany, 
and praised with great warmth the ' Pestalozzian ' (see 
p. 289) instruction without text-books, the enthusiastic 
teachers, the absence of artificial rivalry, and the mild 
discipline in the Prussian system. The report did not 
stigmatize the conservatism of the Boston schools or 
bring them into comparison with those of Berlin, but 
the cap fitted. The pedagogues were disquieted, and 
proceeded to answer savagely. But when the smoke of 
battle had cleared away, it was seen that the leaders of 
the old order had been completely routed. A more in- 

the ultra- sidious attack was that led by the ultra-orthodox. The 

other reaction- old schools of the Puritans, with their dogmatic religious 
teaching, had been steadily fading for more than a cen- 
tury before the new board had been inaugurated, but 
many narrow people were inclined to charge this dis- 
appearance to the reformer, whose Kberal attitude in 
religion was well known. The assaults, however, were 
vigorously and successfully repelled by the Secretary. 
And while these controversies wore Mann out and prob- 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 309 

ably led ultimately to his resignation, they had much to 
do with making his reputation as a great educator. They 
have even caused us at times to forget that he was but 
a striking figure in a general movement. Men like Carter 
were in the field long before him, and his co-worker, 
Barnard, served the cause of education for nearly half a 
century after Mann withdrew. 

The Educational Suggestions and Achievements of 
Mann. — In surveying his educational positions, we find 
Mann's foremost proposition was that education should 
be universal and free. Girls should be trained as well as free education, 
boys, and the poor should have the same opportunities 
as the rich. Public schools should furnish education of 
such a quahty that the wealthy would not regard private 
institutions as superior. This universal education, how- 
ever, should have as its chief aim moral character with character 

' as cmei aim; 

and social efficiency, and not mere erudition, culture, 
and accompHshments. And morality, he felt, would 
not be accomplished by inculcating sectarian doctrines. 
Mann was, however, mainly a practical, rather than 
a theoretical reformer, and to the material side of 
education he gave serious attention. He declared that 
school buildings should be well constructed and san- 
itary. This matter seemed to him so important that "^^"^gnj 
he wrote a special report upon the subject during his 
first year in office. He carefully discussed the proper 
plans for rooms, ventilation, lighting, seating, and other 
schoolhouse features, and insisted that the inadequate 
and squalid conditions which existed should be improved. 
As to methods, he maintained that instruction should methods. 
be based upon scientific principles, and not upon au- 
thority and tradition. He advocated the word method 



3IO 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



trained 
teachers, 



and practical 
studies. 



Doubled ap- 
propriations 
for public 
education; 
increased sala- 
ries, length of 
the school 
year, and the 
number of high 
schools; 



of reading, in the place of the uneconomical, artificial, 
and ineffective method of the alphabet, and the Pesta- 
lozzian object methods and oral instruction were intro- 
duced by him. He held that the work should be guided 
by able teachers, who had been trained in a normal 
school, and should be imparted in a spirit of mildness 
and kindness through an understanding of child nature. 
In the matter of the studies to be pursued, Mann was 
inclined to be exceedingly practical. In discussing edu- 
cational values, he failed to see any reason "why algebra, 
a branch which not one man in a thousand ever has occa- 
sion to use in the business of life, should be studied by 
more than twenty-three hundred pupils, and bookkeep- 
ing, which every man, even the day laborer, should 
understand, should be attended to by only a Httle more 
than half that number." Similarly, he holds that of all 
subjects, save the rudiments, physiology should receive 
the most attention. 

In order that these various reforms might be realized, 
Mann insisted frequently that the state should spare 
no labor or expense. But in a republic he felt that "edu- 
cation can never be attained without the consent of the 
whole people." It was a general elevation of ideals, 
effort, and expenditure that he sought, and for which 
he began his crusade. And the general progress that 
resulted in this period covers a wide range.^' During his 
secretaryship the appropriations made for pubhc educa- 
tion in Massachusetts were more than doubled; and the 
proportion of expenditure for private schools in the state 
was, in consequence, reduced from seventy-five to thirty- 
six per cent of the total cost of education. The salaries 
of masters in the public schools were raised sixty-two 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 31I 

per cent, and, although the number of women teachers, 
had grown fifty-four per cent, the average of their salaries | 
also increased fifty-one per cent. The school attendance 
enormously expanded, and a full month was added to(. 
the average school year. When Mann's administration 
began, but fourteen out of forty-three towns had comphed 
with the high school law of 1826, but, by the middle of 
the century, fifty new high schools had been established. 
The efficiency of supervision was largely increased by 
making the compensation of the town visiting commit- 
tees, established through Carter, compulsory by law. 
The first state normal schools at last appeared, and o°her reforms, 
teachers' institutes, county associations, and public 
school libraries were given general popularity. Quite as 
marked was the improvement effected in the range 
and serviceability of the school studies, in text-books, 
methods of teaching, and discipline. Thus under the 
leadership of Horace Mann a practically unorganized'' 
set of schools, with diverse aims and methods, was welded 
into a well-ordered system with high ideals, and the 
people of Massachusetts renewed their faith in the com- 
mon schools. 

Henry Barnard's Part in the Educational Awaken- 
ing. — But there was another important contribution to 
the awakening made by a New Englander, which was of 
a rather different nature from that connected with the 
influence of Horace Mann. Before that reconstruction 
of the common schools, which was responsible for the 
best elements in our national civilization, could be at • 
all complete, it was necessary that America should have 
a better comprehension of what was being done in educa- 
tion elsewhere. The United States had for two centuries 



312 



A student's history of education 



A systematic 
exposition of 
European 
education 
needed, 



and Barnard 
specially 
qualified to 
make it. 



been undergoing a gradual transition from the institu- 
tional types transplanted from England and the Con- 
tinent in colonial days, and was coming more and more 
to blossom out into democracy and the people's schools, 
but for a long time there was little knowledge of what 
was being done by the other countries that had by this 
time adopted similar ideals. Conceptions of universal 
and democratic education and of improved organization 
and methods had been slowly developing in Prussia and 
other German states, and had extended to France and 
elsewhere. A hterature connected with the advanced 
theories of such reformers as Rousseau, the philanthrop- 
inists, Pestalozzi, and Fellenberg had likewise grown up 
in Europe. It was very important that America, now 
keenly aUve to the need of educational reorganization, 
should become acquainted with all this, that the New 
World might secure the advantages of comparison, cor- 
roboration, and expansion of view from the work of older 
civilized peoples. Some reports on foreign education 
and translations of European treatises had already ap- 
peared (pp. 304 f.), but the time was now ripe for a 
more extensive and systematic exposition of European 
education and its appHcation to popular education in 
America, and for a really capable scholar to bring these 
world views within the grasp of all classes of teachers 
and educational authorities. This Hterary representa- 
tive of the awakening appeared at length in Henry 
Barnard (1811-1900), who is fully worthy of a place in 
the educational pantheon of America. Barnard (Fig. 39) 
made a brilliant record at Yale for general scholarship, 
and a position as assistant librarian during his last two 
years in college did much to afford him a wide grasp of 





Fig. 37. — James G. Carter 
(1795-1849). 



Fig. 38. — Horace Mann 
(1796-1859). 





Fig. 39. — Henry Barnard Fig. 40. — Francis W. Parker 

(1811-1900). (1831-1902). 

Great American Educators 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 313 

bibliography. After graduation, he obtained a valuable 
experience in teaching, and, by travelling extensively in 
America and Europe, formed a broad acquaintance with 
educational institutions, hbraries, galleries, and social 
conditions in all the leading states and nations. 

Barnard as Secretary of the Connecticut State Board. — 
Two years after Barnard's return to Connecticut, he 
began his part in the educational awakening as Secretary 
of the new State Board of Commissioners of Common 
Schools, and undertook to do a work similar to that of 
Mann in Massachusetts. Throughout the eighteenth 
century Connecticut schools had been among the most Untoward 

•' ^ ^ ^ ^ educational 

efficient in the country, but since the income from the conditions in 

Connecticut, 

Western Reserve lands had begun m 1798, and especially 
since this had been increased by the United States deposit 
fund in 1836, public education had steadily declined. 
A state tax was still maintained, but all local effort was 
paralyzed through lack of exercise. \ Another factor in 
producing this decline was connected with the transferal 
of the management of the common schools from the 
town to the 'school society,' which was a species of dis- 
trict, ahnost identical with the parish of each Congrega- 
tional church. The results of this ruinous policy had 
been revealed in an investigation made by the legislature, 
which showed that not one-half of the children of school 
age were attending the common schools, and that the and Barnard's 

1 1 . • J 1 • • attempt to 

teachers were poorly tramed and supervision was neg- reform; 
lected. Barnard at once began to urge many reforms, 
and in his reports and the Connecticut Common School -"^^hooi Journal 
Journal made suggestions for a complete plan of pubHc 
education. He also began the publication of his rich and pubiica- 

,, . ^ . , , . 1 . . ^ tion of educa- 

collection of material bearing upon popular training at tionai material. 



314 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

home and abroad. But he was more a scholar and 
literary man than an educational statesman Hke Mann. 
He succeeded in getting the legislature to pass several 
reforms and a general revision and codification of the 
school laws, and in arousing several towns to amend 
their educational plans, although the crucial difficulty 
of the 'school societies' could not be touched, and within 
four years the conservatives succeeded in legislating him 
out of office and in undoing all his reforms. 
"^ Commissioner of Common Schools in Rhode Island. — 
This gave Barnard an opportunity to pursue his favorite 
investigations, and for about a year and a half he was 
engaged in collecting material for a history of education 
in the United States. Then he was persuaded by the 
governor of Rhode Island to become the first Commis- 
sioner of Common Schools for that state. While he 
found in Rhode Island a better educational sentiment 
and less opposition than in Connecticut, the actual condi- 
tion of the decentralized and individualistic schools was 
far worse (see p. 269). But, through his assemblies of 
Radical re- teachers and parents and his educational treatises, he 
piished. soon began to convince the people of the unwisdom of 

district organization, untrained teachers, short terms, 
irregular attendance, poor buildings and ventilation, 
and meager equipment. He also continued to pubHsh 
his collection of educational material through the founda- 
tion of the Rhode Island School Journal. As a result of 
his efforts, when failing health compelled him to resign 
in 1849, the state no longer regarded wilfulness and 
personal opinion as praiseworthy independence, and 
he could honestly claim that Rhode Island had at the 
time one of the best school systems in the United States. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 315 

State Superintendent of Schools in Connecticut. — 

But the clientele that Barnard had built up in Connecticut 
continued his reforms and constructive work after his 
departure, and improved upon them. In 1851, they 
even succeeded in having him recalled virtually to his 
old duties. He was designated as State Superintendent ^Jrf^'^^an^d 
of Common Schools, as well as Principal of the State refOTj^s'^ ^^ 
Normal School, which had been estabhshed through the 
efforts of his adherents. The state had now learned its 
error in mingling politics with education, and Barnard 
was able to carry out his reforms unmolested. Through 
the normal school he sent out a great body of trained 
teachers. He revised the school code, checked the power 
of the 'school societies,' consoHdated and simplified the 
organization and administration of public education, 
made a more equitable distribution of the school fund, 
and encouraged local taxation. But his most distinctive 
work, as might be expected, was on the literary side. 
He prepared a valuable series of documents upon foreign 
education, normal schools, methods of teaching, school 
architecture, and other topics, and a long report upon 
The History of Legislation in Connecticut Respecting Com- 
mon Schools up to 18 j8, 

Barnard's American Journal of Education. — It was, 
too, during the last days of his Connecticut superintend- 
ency that Henry Barnard suggested the establishment 
of a national journal of education. He first broached 
the matter to the 'American Association for the Ad- 
vancement of Education' at its meeting in Washington, 
December, 1854. But the association soon found itself 
unable to pursue this enterprise for lack of financial Published at 

, . , , . , ^ , , his own ex- 

support, and m May of the next year Barnard began pense. 



3i6 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



in thirty-one 



special trea 
tises. 



the publication of the American Journal of Education 
at his own expense. It was at first planned to run the 
journal for five years only, but, although the work was 
somewhat interrupted upon occasions by other duties, 
it continued for more than a generation, until at length 
thirty-one large octavo volumes, averaging about eight 
an^d^ fifty-two^ hundred pages each, had been issued. In addition, 
fifty-two special treatises reprinted from articles in the 
journal brought the material together in a connected 
way. Besides giving nearly all his time to editing this 
magnum opus, Barnard sank his entire fortune of $50,000 
in its publication. This great treasury of material in- 
cludes every phase of the history of education from the 
earliest times down into the latter half of the nineteenth 
century. It furnishes accounts of all contemporaneous 
systems in Europe and America, descriptions of insti- 
tutions for the professional training of teachers, and 
essays upon courses of study for colleges and technical 
schools, the education of defectives and delinquents, 
physical education, school architecture, great educators, 
and a large variety of other themes. While it is always 
most reHable in its treatises upon foreign education, of 
even greater value is its practical grasp of educational 
life in America from the beginning. It contains the 
greatest collection of interesting monographs upon the 
development of ideals and organization in the various 
states, and gives the most complete description in litera- 
ture of the educational life of a nation. 

First United States Commissioner of Education. — 
In 1867 Barnard was appointed the first United States 
Commissioner of Education. This ofl5ce he had been 
constantly trying to have estabHshed ever since he had 



accounts of 
educational 
history and 
systems, and 
other themes. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 317 

found, as Secretary of the Connecticut Board, how ab- 
solutely lacking the federal government was in school 
statistics and documents. He hoped that, through the 
agency of the government, facilities might be secured to 
collect and publish trustworthy educational statistics, 
and to issue a library of independent treatises. The 
bureau was not created for many years, and then through 
the immediate initiative of another, but when Barnard 
was called to the commissionership, he organized the 
office practically upon the lines he had previously sug- 
gested. He suspended his Journal and used the product ^^'e^nd^l^^s^' 
of his investigations in the annual reports of the office. Journal and 

^ .... . embodied in- 

He started that searching inquiry into the administra- vestigations in 

. . .... - his reports. 

tion, management, and mstruction of mstitutions of 
every grade, and into all educational societies, school 
funds, legislation, architecture, documents, and bene- 
factions that has since been maintained by the Bureau 
of Education. However, within three years a change 
in politics brought a new incumbent into the commis- 
sionership, and Barnard gave his literary efforts once 
more to his beloved Journal. 

Value of Barnard's Educational Collections. — Hence, 
Barnard's real life work may be considered the collection 
of a great educational compendium. By temperament, 
native ability, and habit, He^roved himself well fitted ™ked^hTm as 
to be the leading representative of the literary side of leading repre- 

° ^ _ ^ •' ^ sentative of the 

the awakening. Through his work American education awakening, 
was, in its period of greatest development, granted the 
opportunity of looking beyond the partial and local 
results of the first half century of national life. It was 
enabled to modify and adapt to its own uses the educa- 
tional theories, practices, and organizations of the leading 



3i8 A student's history of education 

civilized peoples, and to bring together for a compara- 
tive view sections and states that were widely separated. 
Barnard's American Journal of Education was not in- 
tended to be a universal encyclopaedia of education, but 
often includes a condensation of important works or a 
presentation of highly scientific methods and profound 
philosophic systems in popular form. It was not pos- 
sible, either, to classify and work out a connected and 
complete historical account, when there were no reliable 
records or collections of materials in existence. It was 
necessary that some one should first gather the informa- 
tion from newspapers, pamphlets, memorials, mono- 
graphs, and plans, and publish it as it was found. In 
this way he accomplished a more valuable work than 
if he had published a systematic history of education in 
the United States. 

Educational Development in New England since the 
Revival. — This great storehouse of information pub- 
lished by Barnard and the virile efforts of Mann and 
other practical leaders were but prominent evidences of 
The 'revival' the progress that was at the time sweeping over the 
but its results entire country. The educational awakening of 1835-1860 
striki^°hi New was general and proved one of the most fruitful in history. 
England. j^.^ influence was felt in every state, and it led to the 

third period of American education, which has been 
characterized by the expansion of pubKc schools and 
state educational systems. During this period new 
ideals of democracy have come to be felt in American 
education, and a rapid advance has taken place in the 
evolution of that unique product, the American public 
school. In describing this development, we may turn 
first to New England. 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 319 

In Massachusetts Horace Mann has been followed in 
the central administration by a succession of seven 
scholarly and experienced educators, who beheved as 
firmly as he that all stages of education below the college 
should be open at public expense without let or hindrance ^nce "then Tn 
to the richest and poorest child alike. Since the revival j^ umVwsaf ^ 
the state has seen a steady growth of sentiment for uni- f^"^^'°j ^^'^ 
versal education and improved schooling, and never schooling, 
again has such an upheaval of the educational strata been ■ 
necessary. The income of the state school fund and ad- 
ditional appropriations have been steadily increased, 
their apportionment among the towns has been rendered 
more equitable from time to time, and an effort has con- 
stantly been made to distribute them in such a way as to 
encourage local effort and cooperation. The school term 
has been lengthened to ten months and the average 
attendance of pupils to seven years. The improvements 
in school buildings, sanitation, and equipment have 
steadily advanced. The district system died hard, and Death of dis- 
not until 1882 was it altogether forced out of ex- '*^ *^^ ^°*' 
istence. 

Most of the academies, too, which proved such a 
hindrance to the development of public secondary educa- 
tion, gradually died or were merged in the public system 
as high schools. By means of state aid, it has been pos- Growth of high 

. ■^ schools, super- 

sible smce 1903 for the smallest towns to afford a high intendents, 
school training for their children at public expense. Su- 
pervision has also become universal during the past 
quarter century. Springfield first introduced a superin- 
tendent of schools in 1841, Gloucester in 1850, Boston 
in 185 1, and the other cities much later, but since 1888, 
through increasing state aid and the combination of 



320 



A student's history of education 



and teacher 
training. 



smaller towns into a district superin tendency, expert 
supervision has become possible everywhere, and during 
the last decade it has been compulsory. The normal 
schools, which have now increased to ten, have brought 
about a striking improvement in teaching. It is prac- 
tically impossible at present for an untrained teacher to 
secure a position in the elementary schools of Massachu- 
setts, and, through a system of examinations and inves- 
tigations, teachers of exceptional ability have, since 
1896, been granted an extra weekly allowance by the 
state. Since the middle of the century, the state board 
has been permitted to appoint a number of agents, to 
assist in inspecting and improving the schools, especially 
in the smaller towns and rural districts. 

The course of development since the awakening has 

been very similar in the other New England states. 

„^ J , , _, The successors of Barnard in the central administration 

Rhode Island, 

and other New both in Rhode Island and Connecticut have been 

England states, , .„ , , , i i -i 1 • 

skilled and earnest educators, and, while their reports 
lacked his literary touch, they were of rather more prac- 
tical character. Until 1856, Connecticut made no at- 
tempt to return from the parish to the town organization. 
Even then, as well as later, legislation on the subject 
was 'permissive,' and not until the twentieth century 
was the 'school society,' or district system, given up 
in half of the towns. In Rhode Island, even after Bar- 
nard's reforms, almost one-third of the districts did not 
own their school buildings, owing to the survival of the 
method in use when the schools were private, but this 
condition has gradually been remedied. Likewise, the 
number of towns levying sufl&cient local taxes to secure 
a share in the state apportionment rapidly grew, and the 



Similar de- 
velopment in 
Connecticut, 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 32 1 

state appropriation itself doubled and quadrupled within 
a generation. In Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, 
owing to insufl&cient wealth, infertility of soil, and sparse- 
ness of population, effective public education has been 
reached only by slow and cautious steps. But even these 
states have gradually centralized their educational ad- 
ministration through the aboHtion of the district system 
and the creation at various times of a state superintend- 
ent, a state commissioner, or a state board and secretary. 
This reorganization has been followed by increased state 
school funds and appropriations, more systematic statis- 
tics and reports from the schools, and great advances in 
universalizing and improving all stages of pubUc edu- 
cation. 

Influence of the Awakening upon the Middle States. — 
Although this awakened sentiment for education and 
progress in the common school has been most patent 
and spectacular in New England, it has not been peculiar 
to that part of the country. Nearly all of the other states increased en- 

^ •' •' thusiasm for 

seem to have felt the influence of the awakening. In public educa- 

tion in Middle 

close conjunction with the 'revival' in New England, states, 
the movement appeared in New York, especially the 
western part, and was more or less evident in Pennsyl- 
vania, New Jersey, and Delaware. But because of its 
cosmopoUtanism and the need of fusing so many different 
political, rehgious, and industrial traditions, the older 
parts of New York, where the school system had until 
the awakening been rather in advance of other states, 
did not progress as rapidly in the development of pubhc 
education as Massachusetts and Connecticut. It had, 
however, by the time of the Civil War, succeeded in 
working over its heterogeneous people into a unified 



322 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



New York's 
advances in 
normal train- 
ing, supervi- 
sion, and 
school funds. 



civilization and in causing their children to be educated 
together for a common citizenship. 

The most distinct advances during this period of final 
organization have been in the establishment of state 
normal schools, instead of subsidizing academies to train 
teachers, in the administration and supervision of the 
system, and in the methods of state support of educa- 
tion. The first state normal school was opened at Al- 
bany in 1844, and this pioneer institution has eventually 
been followed by ten others. In 1854 the state superin- 
tendency had once more been separated from the secre- 
taryship of state, with which it had been combined for 
thirty-five years (p. 259). In 1856 local supervision 
was established through the appointment of school com- 
missioners for the cities and villages. In the same year, 
a three-quarters of a mill tax was placed upon the prop- 
erty valuation of the state, and during the next dozen 
years many improvements were made in the disbursing 
and accounting of pubhc funds. At length, in 1867, the 
long fight that had been made for entirely free education 
was successful. > Until then nearly fifty thousand chil- 
dren had been deprived of all education, because their 
parents were too proud to secure payment of their tui- 
tion fees by confessing themselves paupers. It was 
during this era of progress, too, that New York City was, 
in 1842, allowed to place the direction of its schools in 
cation in New the hands of a board of education, elected by the people, 

York City. . . . . J t' t^ ' 

mstead of giving over the city's share of the state 
funds to a quasi-public society, controlled by a close 
corporation. For eleven years, however, the Pub- 
lic School Society refused to give up its work, but 
by 1853 it decided to disband and merge its build- 



Board of edu- 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 323 

ings and funds with those of the city school system (see 
p. 261). 

Pennsylvania was slower than New York in showing 
the efifects of the educational awakening, but the leaven 
was at work. While a number of progressive governors 
and other statesmen continually recommended the de- 
velopment of public education, and the 'Pennsylvania 
Society for the Promotion of Common Schools' had been 
organized, the towering leader in this movement was 
Thomas H. Burrowes. As secretary of state and ex 
officio superintendent of schools (1836-1838), as a public 
speaker and educational journalist (1838-1860), and 
as state superintendent (1860-1862), he constantly 
urged a complete system of public education, the estab- 
lishment of normal schools, a separate state department 
of education, and the organization of state and county 
supervision. In 1849 the 'permissive' feature of the law Pennsylvania 
of 1834 was abolished, and the two hundred districts missite^feafure 
that had thus far refused to establish public schools were fawf ^*^ °° 
forced to do so under the new provisions, i In 1854 a re- 
vised school law was passed, which, after twenty years, 
now made the state system of education complete. It 
established in the secretary of state's ofi&ce a deputy su- 
perintendent of schools, who had virtually a separate 
department, and provided for county superintendents. 
Three years later the state educational department be- 
came absolutely independent under the care of a superin- ^u^^^tlSlfai 
tendent, and provision was made for a system of normal ^^|[|™ ^°^' 
schools. These institutions were to be estabhshed at first and provided 

system of nor- 

by private enterprise and without state subsidy. By 1877 ™^' schools, 
there were ten in operation, largely maintained by the 
state. Three others have since been added, and the 



324 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Advances in 
New Jersey 
rapid, when 
once started. 



Delaware 
slower, but 
now making 
progress. 



state has begun to take over into its own hands the entire 
support and control of them all. \ 

Educational progress in New Jersey also took some 
time to get under way, but when the reforms once started, 
they continued until an excellent system of common 
schools had been inaugurated. In 1838 the limitation 
of state funds to the education of the poor was removed, 
and the apportionment of the income from them was 
thereafter applied only to public schools. Since 1848, 
when a state superintendency was established, the de- 
velopment has been more rapid. County supervision 
has been introduced, state normal schools have been es- 
tablished at Trenton and Upper Montclair, and appro- 
priations have been greatly increased. In 191 1 a state 
commissioner of education with an efficient corps of dep- 
uties was provided. Delaware, on the other hand, failed 
to live up to the possibilities under her early 'permissive' 
laws. Even the organization of ' the friends of common 
school education' showed itself very conservative, and 
would not advocate the creation of a state superinten- 
dency or the establishment of state normal schools. In 
fact, Delaware did not organize a complete state system 
until after the war. Even then, while a state board and 
state superintendency were established in 1875, there 
were no county superintendents, and when county super- 
vision was introduced in 1888, the state superintendency 
was abolished. It was not reestablished until 191 2, but 
since then the state system has made evident progress. 

Public Education in the West. — The budding of a 
common school system, which had just begun to appear 
in the new commonwealths of the Northwest before 1840, 
rapidly unfolded into full blossom during this educa- 




PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES-^ 

tional springtime. Through this awakening the common 
school advocates in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were J^^ Ohio, 

' ' ^ Indiana, and 

greatly aided in their struggle to overcome the opposition Illinois, op- 

° -^ °° ^ 11. 1 ponents of pub- 

of settlers from the states not committed to public educa- Uc education 

/ \ 1 1 f 1 J . . overcome, and 

tion (see p. 272}, and they were favored to some extent state system 

1 • r • 1. r J.1- i. r i-u ui* established. 

by accessions of emigrants from the home of the pubuc 
school movement. During the decade just preceding 
the middle of the century, there was a decided elevation 
of pubHc sentiment going on. Under the leadership of 
Samuel Lewis and Samuel Galloway in Ohio, Caleb 
Mills in Indiana, and Ninian W. Edwards in Illinois, 
the friends of pubHc education had marshalled themselves 
for battle. Reports and memorials were constantly pre- 
sented to the legislatures of these states, and public ad- 
dresses in behalf of common schools were frequent in most 
large communities. A group of devoted schoolmen ap- 
peared, who were as successful in lobbying for good legis- 
lation as they were with institutes and public lectures. 
While reactions occasionally happened, like that in 
Ohio between 1840 and 1845, when the state superin- 
tendency was temporarily abolished, pubHc education 
gradually came to be regarded as something more than 
merely free education for the poor, and pubhc school 
funds were no longer granted as a subsidy to private in- 
stitutions. After a quarter century of 'permissive' 
laws, local taxation and free common schools were fully 
realized in aU three states early in the fifties. The con- 
test, of course, was not ended, as reactionary elements, 
with selfish, local, and sectarian interests, still remained, 
but their contentions have never again been more than 
partially successful. New features of the common 
schools, such as efficient teachers for the rural districts, 



326 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Michigan 
early provided 
for schools, 
and soon de- 
veloped high 
and normal 
schools. 



Rapidity of 
development 
and triumph of 
common school 
idea in the 
West. 



county supervision, state normal training, and free 
higher education in state universities, have gradually 
rendered the state systems more consistent and complete. 

In Michigan, on the other hand, where there was not 
such a mixture of population, and a complete sympathy 
with the common school idea appeared, there was almost 
unhampered progress from the beginning of statehood. 
Under the first constitution (1837), there was provision 
made for a permanent school fund and for a local tax 
in every district, although the schools were partly main- 
tained until 1869 by 'rate bills' collected from the pupils. 
In accordance with the grant of two townships of land by 
Congress in 1826 for a university, the first legislature of 
the new state established the University of Michigan 
(Fig. 42), and its doors were open to students in 1841. 
It soon became the most prominent of the state univer- 
sities. There was also provided a system of ' branches ' of 
the university, whereby a liberal grant was made for an 
academy in any county that would furnish suitable 
buildings and a sum equal to the appropriation from the 
state. As this proved a dissipation of the university 
funds, it was gradually stopped, and between 1852 and 
i860 'union' and high schools were rapidly developed to 
supply the means of fitting for the university. In 1850 
a state normal school was founded, and four others have 
since been added. 

In all the other territory acquired or purchased by the 
United States in its westward expansion, the educational 
history has been very similar to that in the first states of 
the Northwest. Progress in common school sentiment 
has been made pari passu with the settlement of the 
country. Each state, upon admission, has received its 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 327 

sixteenth section of school land and two townships for a 
university, and in the states admitted since 1848 the 
endowment of schools has been increased to two sections, 
while Texas, which had been an independent republic 
(1836-1845), stipulated before becoming a state that it 
should retain sole possession of its public lands, and has 
set aside for education nearly two and one-half millions 
of acres. Hence in the first constitution of each state, 
permanent school and university funds, together with a 
regular organization of the schools of the state, have 
generally been provided. In few cases have sectarian 
interests been able to delay or injure the growth of com- 
mon schools in any of the later commonwealths, and the 
interpretation of public education as schools for the 
children of paupers has never seriously influenced the 
West. 

Organization of State Systems in the South. — Thus 
through the awakening of common schools that occurred 
throughout the union from 1835 to i860 was the old- 
time country and city district school of the North gradu- 
ally lifted up to the present system of graded free elemen- 
tary, secondary, and normal schools, together with city 
and state universities. But these results were not at 
first as fully realized in the South, because of the ap- 
proach and precipitation of the dreadful internecine 
conflict that weighed down and finally prostrated the 
resources of that section. However, except for this im- 
pending calamity, the conditions in the South were not 
essentially different from those in any other section. 
During the earlier years of the awakening, and in some Awakening 
states up to the very verge of the Civil War^ great prog- approach of 
ress in public education was noticeable. The attend- ''^^ ^^' 



328 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



and 



progress 
stopped, 
facilities 
wrecked at 
close of the war. 



Need of uni- 
versal educa- 
tion realized 
and struggles 
to attain it. 



ance in the common schools, estabhshed in several states 
by 'permissive' legislation, had been rapidly growing 
for a score of years, and there was an increasing body of 
prominent men desirous of enlarging popular education. 
During the early forties there were many efforts and 
suggestions for a system of pubhc schools, and several 
conventions were held in the interest of such institutions. 
North CaroHna actually estabhshed a state system in 
1839. Tennessee (1838-1843) and Kentucky (1838) 
made less enduring efforts toward a similar organization, 
and as late as 1858 Georgia took a distinct step forward 
in this direction. Moreover, even in their secession con- 
ventions some states, like Georgia, adopted resolutions 
or constitutional amendments looking to the education 
of the people, and North Carolina in 1863, with the union 
army actually at its doors, undertook to grade the schools 
and provide for the training of teachers. But, in general, 
as the impending conflict drew near, attention to educa- 
tional progress was forced to give way to the preserva- 
tion of state and home, and after the war, which crushed 
and ravaged nearly every portion of the South, educa- 
tional facihties had for the most part been totally 
wrecked. 

Nevertheless, in the end the war served as a stimulus 
to common schools. It brought about a complete over- 
turn of the old social and industrial order, and the South 
realized more fully than ever that it could arise from its 
desperate material and educational phght only through 
the institution of universal education. ' As early as 1865, 
school systems were organized in the border states, — 
Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia, and 
even during the harsh and unhappy days of ' reconstruc- 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 329 

tion' (1867-1876), efforts were made in other states 
to build up systems of free public education. The or- 
ganization of education became more thorough and 
mandatory than before the war. All children, white and 
colored, were to attend school between six and twenty- 
one, and the term was to last from four to six months 
each year. Property and poll taxation were estabUshed 
for the support of the schools. A state superintendent 
and state board of education, county commissioners 
and a county board, and trustees in each district, were 
provided for. Text-book commissions were often estab- 
lished, and free books were granted to poor children. 
The foundation for a real system was thus laid. 

This was a tremendous undertaking, and shows the 
greatest courage and executive abihty upon the part of obstacles that 
the South. Property had been diminished in valuation come° 
to the extent of nearly two billion dollars, and there 
were two million children to be educated. Moreover, 
under the reconstruction regime, the tax on property 
was often not collected, and the appropriations for edu- 
cation remained on paper. Indifference and inexperience 
were aggravated by the fear that ' mixed ' schools would 
be forced upon the white population by a reconstruction 
legislature or a Congress with millennial zeal in behalf 
of universal brotherhood. These obstacles, together 
with misdirected effort upon the part of Northern mis- 
sionaries, and other serious interferences, for fully a 
decade constituted an enormous stumbhng-block. Sev- 
eral factors, however, aided and encouraged the South 
in its efforts. Of these the most important was the foun- 

Peabody Edu- 

dation m 1867 of the Peabody Educational Fund of cationai Fund 
$2,000,000, well characterized as "a gift to the suffering couragement. 



33° 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



South for the good of the Union." This fund was placed 
in the management of the wisest and most sympathetic 
agents, who appealed to the higher sentiment of the 
communities and the states, and granted the assistance 
necessary to stimulate local effort in education. When 
the fund proved insufficient for the great task, the trus- 
tees pleaded with Congress for an additional subsidy, 
and made the whole country aware of the crying needs 
of education in the South. Through these appeals, 
more than ten million dollars from various sources have 
since been granted to the different grades of public 
education. 

i Despite the tremendous rally during the seventies, 
Struggle won howevcr, the struggle for pubHc education in the South 

by 1890 and . , , . 

constant prog- was not won for twenty years, but complete systems of 
common schools have now at length been generally es- 
tablished. With the cessation of the reconstruction 
influence and the subsidence of the dread of mixed 
schools, attendance and appropriations have greatly 
increased, schools for the education of colored children 
have been furnished, and provision has been made for 
training and stimulating teachers of both races. Separate 
state institutions for higher education, cultural and voca- 
tional, have been established to furnish a broad educa- 
tion for both whites and negroes. Since 1890 there has 
been an ever increasing interest in improving the public 
school in all respects, and the expenditures and facilities 
u for education have been constantly increasing. 
-^ Development of the American System of Education. — 
"""With its final development in the South during the last 
decade of the nineteenth century, the distinctly American 
public school system may be said to have been fully 



PUBLIC EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES 33 1 

elaborated. The educational ideals and institutions im- 
ported from Europe in the colonial period have gradually 
been modified and adapted to the needs of America. 
Schools have become public and free in the modern 
sense. The control of education has passed from private ^"lo^^state'^ 
parties and even quasi-public societies to the state. The ^^^f°^l' ]^"^ 
schools have likewise come to be supported by the state, schools re- 

^ •^ "'^ _ _ placed acade- 

and are open to all children alike without the imposition mies, colleges 
of any financial obligation. In secondary education, and state uni- 
the academies, which supplanted the 'grammar' schools, Ushed. * 
first became 'free academies' and made no charge for 
tuition from local patrons, though remaining close cor- 
porations, and then were in time replaced by the true 
American secondary institution, — the high school (Fig. 
41). Colleges became largely non-sectarian, even when 
not nominally so, and state universities were organized in 
all except a few of the oldest commonwealths (Fig. 42). 
Thus has the idea of common schools and the right to use 
the public wealth to educate the entire body of children 
into sound American citizenship been made complete. 
Although the system is still capable of much improve- 
ment, it is expressive of American genius and develop- 
ment. It is simply the American idea of government and 
society applied to education. It is the educational will of 
the people expressed through the majority, and the re- 
sultant of the highest thinking and aspirations of a great 
nation made up of the most powerful and progressive ele- 
ments from all civilized peoples. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chaps. VI and 
VIII, and Great Educators (Macmillan, 191 2), chap. XIII; Parker, 



332 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

Modern Elementary Education (Ginn, 1Q12), chap. XII. For the 
details of the life and work of Mann in brief form, read Hinsdale, 
B. A., Horace Mann and the Common School Revival (Scribner, 
1899), or the readable little work on Horace Mann the Educator 
(New England Publishing Co., 1896) by Winship, A. E. Monroe, 
W. S., has briefly recounted The Educational Labors of Henry 
Barnard (Bardeen, Syracuse, 1893), and a longer account of Henry 
Barnard is that of Mayo, A. D., in Report of U. S. Commissioner 
of Education, 1896-1897, vol. I, chap. XVI. For the development 
of public education in the various parts of the country during 
this third period, see Martin, G. H., Evolution of the Massachusetts 
Public School System (Appleton, 1894), lects. IV- VI; Steiner, B. C., 
History of Education in Connecticut {U. S. Bureau of Education, 
Circular of Information, No. 2, 1893), chaps. III-V; Stockwell, 
T. B., History of Public Education in Rhode Island (Providence 
Press Co., Providence, 1876), chaps. VI-X; Randall, S. S., History 
of the Common School System of the State of New York (Ivison, 
Blakeman, Taylor, New York, 1871), third and fourth periods; 
Wickersham, J. P., History of Education in Pennsylvania (Lan- 
caster, Pennsylvania, 1886), chaps. XVII-XVIII; Mayo, A. D., 
The Development of the Common Schools in the Western States {Re- 
port of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1898-99, vol. I, 
pp. 357-450); Boone, R. G., History of Education in Indiana (Ap- 
pleton, 1892), chaps. IV and VIII-XXXIII; Smith, W. L., His- 
torical Sketch of Education in Michigan (Lansing, 1881), pp. 17-38, 
49-57, and 78-109; Knight, E. W., The Influence of Reconstruction 
on Education in the South (Columbia University, Teachers College 
Contributions, No. 60, 1913) and The Peabody Fund and Its Early 
Operation in North Carolina {South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. xiv, 
no. 2). Mayo, A. D., Education in the Several States, Education of 
the Colored Race, and The Slater Fund {Report of the U. S. Com- 
missioner of Education 1894-95, XXX, XXXI, and XXXII). 




!|!i!l 

i;i|iii'ii 






.^'0!|( 



OT„|S!i 



Fig. 41. — The first high school. (This insti- 
tution was estabhshed at Boston in 1821 
as the 'English Classical School,' and 
three years later the name was changed 
to 'English High School.') 




Fig. 42.— The University of Michigan in 1855. (The oldest picture of the 
first prominent state university; established by the legislature in 1837, 
and opened in 1841.) 



^ CHAPTER XXIV 

DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 

OUTLINE 

Of the two aspects to Pestalozzi's educational positions, Froebel 
stressed development from within, and Herbart development 
from without. 

Through an early tutorial experience Herbart developed his 
pedagogy, but afterward invented an ingenious psychology upon 
which to base it. He undertook to show how the mind of the 
pupil is largely built up by the teacher, and he held to the moral 
aim of education. To accomplish this, he advocated 'many- 
sided interest,' and, while recognizing the value of both 'historical' 
and 'scientific' subjects, emphasized the former. But he also 
held that all subjects should be unified through 'correlation,' and 
formulated the 'formal steps of instruction.' The value of his 
work has been obscured by the formal interpretations of disciples, 
but he contributed greatly to the science of education. Herbar- 
tianism, developed by Ziller and others, spread throughout Ger- 
many; through the Herbart Society, it has greatly influenced 
educational content and methods in the United States. 

Through his university environment, Froebel developed a 
mystic philosophy, but made it the basis of remarkable educational 
practices. He held to organic 'unity' in the universe, and to the 
general method of 'self-activity.' Besides this (i) 'motor expres- 
sion,' he also stressed (2) 'social participation,' and attempted to 
realize both principles in (3) a school without books and set tasks, 
— the 'kindergarten.' The training here has consisted chiefly in 
'play-songs,' 'gifts,' and 'occupations.' The chief weakness of 
FroebeUanism is its mystic and symbolic theory, but it has com- 
prehended the most essential laws of education at all stages. 

333 



334 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

The kindergarten was spread through Europe largely by Baroness 
von Bulow, and through the United States by Elizabeth P. Pea- 
body and others. 

Few tendencies in educational practices to-day cannot be traced 
back for their rudimentary form to Herbart and Froebel, or their 
master, Pestalozzi. 

Froebel and Herbart as Disciples of Pestalozzi. — 
In the discussion of observation and industrial training, 
we have noted the suggestions for improvement in educa- 
tional practice that arose through Pestalozzi. While 
somewhat vague and based upon sympathetic insight 
rather than scientific principles, the positions of Pesta- 
lozzi not only left their direct influence upon the teach- 
ing of certain subjects in the elementary curriculum, 
but became the basis of the elaborate systems of Herbart 
and Froebel. These educators may be regarded as con- 
temporary disciples of the Swiss reformer, who was 
born a generation before, but they continued his work 
along rather different lines. Each went to visit Pesta- 
lozzi, and it would seem from their comments upon what 

fh^e^ma^Ter"the ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ found in the master the main prin- 
principie that qitAq which appealed to him and which he afterward de- 

appealed to ^ *^ ^ 

him. veloped more or less consistently throughout his work. 

For there were two very definite aspects to Pestalozzi's 
positions, which may at first seem opposed to each other, 
but are not necessarily contradictory. On the one hand, 
Pestalozzi seems to have held that education should be a 
natural development from within; on the other, that it 
must consist in the derivation of ideas from experience 
with the outside world. The former point of view, which 
is apparent in his educational aim and definition of 
education (seep. 285), would logically argue that every 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 335 

characteristic is implicit in the child at birth in the exact Development 
form to which it is afterward to be developed, and that and the child 
the teacher can at best only assist the child's nature in ^led by^ ^' 
the efforts for its own unfolding. This attitude Pesta- ^''°^^^^' 
lozzi apparently borrowed from the psychology implied 
in Rousseau's naturahsm. The other conception, that 
of education as sense perception, which is evident in 
Pestalozzi's observational methods (see p. 286), depends from'°without 
upon the theory that immediate and direct impressions u"'^^ ^b^^t^' 
from the outside are the absolute basis of all knowledge, 
and holds that the contents of the mind must be entirely 
built up by the teacher. Some such naive interpretation 
has been common since speculation began, especially 
among teachers, and had been formulated before Pesta- 
lozzi's day by Locke, Hume, and others. In the main, 
Froebel took the first of these Pestalozzian viewpoints 
and rarely admitted the other, but the latter phase was 
developed by Herbart to the almost total disregard of 
the former. Hence we find that the one educator lays 
emphasis upon the child's development and activities, 
and the other concerns himself with method and the 
work of the teacher. The original contributions of both 
reformers to educational practice, however, were large, 
and are deserving of extended description. 

The Early Career and Writings of Herbart. — Johann 
Friedrich Herbart (i 776-1841) both by birth and by 
education possessed a remarkable mind, and was well cal- 
culated to become a profound educational philosopher. 
He came of intellectual and educated stock, and at the 
gymnasium and university displayed a keen interest .^ 

in philosophy, Greek, and mathematics. Each of these philosophy, 

1 . , . , , . , . , Greek, and 

subjects, too, was destmed to play a part m his educa- mathematics. 



33^ 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Development 
of his peda- 
gogy through 
tutorial ex- 
perience. 



Interpreted 
and supple- 
mented Pesta- 
lozzi's prin- 
ciples. 



tional theories. Just before graduation (1797), however, 
Herbart left the university to become private tutor to the 
three sons of the governor of Interlaken, Switzerland, 
and during the next three years he obtained in this way 
a most valuable experience. The five extant reports that 
he made on the methods he used and on his pupils' 
progress reveal thus early the germs of his elaborate 
system. The youthful pedagogue seems to have recog- 
nized the individual variations in children, and to have 
shown a due regard for the respective ages of his pupils. 
He also sought, by means of his favorite work, the 
Odyssey, to develop in them the elements of morahty 
and a 'many-sided interest.' This early experience, 
rather than his ingenious system of psychology and 
metaphysics, which he afterward developed in explana- 
tion, was the real foundation of his pedagogy, and fur- 
nished him with the concrete examples of the character- 
istics and individuahties of children that appear in all his 
later works. He ever afterward maintained that a care- 
ful study of the development of a few children was the 
best preparation for a pedagogical career, and eventually 
made an experience of this kind the main element in 
his training of teachers. 

While still in Switzerland, Herbart met Pestalozzi and 
was greatly attracted by the underlying principles of 
that reformer. He paid a visit to the institute at Burg- 
dorf in 1799, and during the next two years, while at 
Bremen completing his interrupted university course, 
he undertook to advocate and render more scientific the 
thought of the Swiss educator. Here he wrote a sym- 
pathetic essay On Pestalozzi' s Latest Writing, 'How Ger- 
trude Teaches Her Children,' and made his interpretation 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 337 

of Pestalozzi's Idea of an A BC of Observation (see p. 286). 
Next Herbart lectured on pedagogy at the University of 
Gottingen. The treatises he wrote there seem to have 
become more critical toward the Pestalozzian methods, 
and he no longer strives to conceal their vagueness and 
want of system. Sense perception, he holds with Pesta- 
lozzi, does supply the first elements of knowledge, but 
the material of the school course should be definitely 
arranged with reference to the general purpose of in- 
struction, which is moral self-realization. This position 
on the moral aim of education he made especially explicit 
and complete in his work on The Science of Education ^** Science of 

'^ •' Education, 

(1806). 

His Work at Konigsberg and Gottingen. — In 1809 
Herbart was called to the chair of philosophy at Konigs- 
berg, and there established his now historic pedagogical 
seminary and the small practice school connected with Seminary and 

•^ ^ _ _ practice school. 

it. The students, who taught in the practice school 
under the supervision and criticism of the professor, 
were intending to become school principals and inspec- 
tors, and, through the widespread work and influence of 
these young Herbartians the educational system of 
Prussia and of every other state in Germany was greatly 
advanced. In his numerous publications at Konigsberg, 
Herbart devoted himself chiefly to works on a system of 
psychology as a basis for his pedagogy. After serving 
nearly a quarter of a century here, he returned to Gottin- 
gen as professor of philosophy, and the last eight years 
of his life were spent in expanding his pedagogical posi- 
tions. Here he issued the first edition of his Outlines of Outlines of 
Educational Doctrine (1835), which gives an exposition Doctrine. 
of his educational system when fully matured. It con- 



338 A student's history of education 

tains brief references to his mechanical metaphysics and 
psychology, but is a most practical and well-organized 
discussion of the educational process. 

Herbart's Psychology. — Herbart's metaphysical psy- 
thought. chology seems to have been an after-thought developed 

to afford a basis for the method of pedagogical procedure 
that he had worked out of his tutorial experience and his 
acquaintance with the Pestalozzian practice. But some 
explanation of this elaborate psychology may serve to 
make clearer his educational principles. For the most 
b^'^outsid? ""^ part he holds that the mind is built up by the outside 
world. world, and he is generally supposed to have left no place 

for instincts or innate characteristics and tendencies. 
With him the simplest elements of consciousness are 
'ideas,' which are atoms of mind stuff thrown off from 
the soul in endeavoring to maintain itself against external 
stimuli. Once produced by this contact of the soul with 
its environment, the ideas become existences with their 
own dynamic force, and constantly strive to preserve 
combinatbn of themsclvcs. They struggle to attain as nearly as possible 
ideas. ^Q |-jjg summit of consciousness, and each idea tends to 

draw into consciousness or heighten those aUied to it, 
and to depress or force out those which are unlike. Each 
new idea or group of ideas is heightened, modified, or 
rejected, according to its degree of harmony or conflict 
with the previously existing ideas. In other words, all 
new ideas are interpreted through those already in con- 
sciousness. In accordance with this principle, which 
tion.' Herbart called 'apperception,' the teacher can secure 

interest and the attention of the pupil to any new idea 
or set of ideas and have him retain it, only through 
making use of his previous body of related knowledge. 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 339 

Hence the educational problem becomes how to present 
new material in such a way that it can be ' apperceived ' 
or incorporated with the old, and the mind of the pupil 
is largely in the hands of the teacher, since he can make 
or modify his 'apperception masses,' or systems of ideas. 

The Aim, Content, and Method of Education.— Ac- 
cordingly, Herbart holds that the purpose of education 
should be to establish moral and religious character. He d^aracteras °* 
beheves that this final aim can be attained through ^™- 
instruction, and that, to determine how this shall fur- 
nish a 'moral revelation of the world,' a careful study 
must be made of each pupil's thought masses, tempera- 
ment, and mental capacity. There is not much likeli- 
hood of the pupil's receiving ideas of virtue that will de- 
velop into glowing ideals of conduct when his studies 
do not appeal to his thought systems and are conse- 
quently regarded with indifference and aversion. They 
must coalesce with the ideas he already has, and thus 
touch his life. But Herbart does not limit 'interest' 
to a temporary stimulus for the performance of certain 
school tasks; he advocates the building up by education 
of certain broad interests that may become permanent ; Many-sided 
sources of appeal in life. Instruction must be so selected 
and arranged as not only to relate itself to the previous 
experience of the pupil, but as also to reveal and estab- 
hsh all the relations of life and conduct in their fullness. 

In analyzing this 'rnany sided interest,' Herbart holds 
that ideas and interests spring from two main sources, — 
'experience,' which furnishes us with a knowledge of 
nature, and 'social intercourse,' from which come the 
sentiments toward our fellowmen. Interests may, there- 'Knowledge' 
fore, be classed as belonging to (i) 'knowledge' or to tbn'mterSte." 



340 



A student's history of education 



'Historical' 
and 'scientific' 
subjects. 



' Correlation ' 
and 'concen- 
tration.' 



(2) 'participation.' These two sets of interests, in turn, 
Herbart divides into three groups each. He classed the 
'knowledge' interests as (a) 'empirical,' appealing di- 
rectly to the senses; (b) 'speculative,' seeking to perceive 
the relations of cause and effect; and (c) 'aesthetic,' 
resting upon the enjoyment of contemplation. The 
'participation' interests are divided into (a) 'sym- 
pathetic,' dealing with relations to other individuals; 

(b) 'social,' including the community as a whole; and 

(c) 'religious,' treating one's relations to the Divine. 
Instruction must, therefore, develop all these interests, 
and, to correspond with the two main groups, Herbart 
divides all studies into two branches, — the (i) 'historical,' 
including history, literature, and languages; and the 
(2) 'scientific,' embracing mathematics, as well as the 
natural sciences. Although recognizing the value of 
both groups, Herbart especially stressed the 'historical,' 
on the ground that history and literature are of greater 
importance as the sources of moral ideas and sentiments. 

But, while all the subjects, 'historical' and 'scientific,' 
are needed for a 'many-sided interest,' and the various 
studies have for convenience been separated and classi- 
fied by themselves, Herbart holds that they must be so 
arranged in the curriculum as to become unified and an 
organic whole, if the unity of the pupil's consciousness 
is to be maintained. This position forecasts the emphasis 
upon 'correlation,' or the unification of studies, so com- 
mon among his followers. The principle was further 
developed by later Herbartians under the name of ' con- 
centration,' or the unifying of all subjects around one or 
two common central studies, such as literature or his- 
tory. But the selection and articulation of the subject- 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 34 1 

matter in such a way as to arouse many-sidedness and 
harmony is not more than hinted at by Herbart himself. 
He specifically holds, however, that the Odyssey should 
be the first work read, since this represents the interests 
and activities of the race while in its youth, and would 
appeal to the individual during the same stage. He 
would follow this with other Greek classics in the order 
of the growing complexity of racial interests depicted in 
them. This tentative endeavor of Herbart, in the selec- 
tion of material for the course of study, to parallel the 
development of the individual with that of the race, was 
continued and enlarged by his disciples. It became 
especially definite and fixed in the 'culture epochs' 'Culture 
theory formulated by Ziller and others. 

But to secure this broad range of material and to unify 
and systematize it, Herbart realized that it was neces- 
sary to formulate a definite method of instructing the 
child. This plan of instruction he wished to conform to 
the development and working of the human mind, and 
on the basis of what he conceived this activity to be, he 
mapped out a method with four logical steps: (i) 'clear- 
ness,' the presentation of facts or elements to be learned; 
(2) 'association,' the uniting of these with related facts Herbart's'"* 
previously acquired; (3) 'system,' the coherent and ^^^^qq°^ "*' 
logical arrangement of what has been associated; and 
(4) 'method,' the practical application of the system 
by the pupil to new data. The formulation of this 
method was made only in principle by Herbart, but it 
has since been largely modified and developed by his 
followers. It was soon felt that, on the principle of ' ap- 
perception,' the pupil must first be made conscious of 
the existing stock of ideas so far as they are similar 



342 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



'Five formaJ 
steps. ' 



Clarified 
Pestalozzi's 
vague principle 
of ' observa- 
tion' through 
an ingenious 
psychology, 



to the material to be presented, and that this can be 
accomplished by a review of preceding lessons or by an 
outline of what is to be undertaken, or by both proce- 
dures. Hence Herbart's noted disciple, Ziller, divided the 
step of 'clearness' into 'preparation' and 'presentation/ 
and the more recent Herbartian, Rein, added 'aim' as a 
substep to 'preparation.' The names of the other three 
processes have been changed for the sake of greater lu- 
cidity and significance by still later Herbartians, and the 
'five formal steps of instruction' are now given as (i) 
'preparation' (2) 'presentation,' (3) 'comparison and 
abstraction,' (4) 'generalization,' and (5) 'application.' 

The Value and Influence of Herbart's Principles. — 
On all sides, then, as compared with Pestalozzi, Herbart 
was most logical and comprehensive. Where Pestalozzi 
obtained his methods solely from a sympathetic insight 
into the child mind, Herbart sought to found his also 
upon scientific principles. The former was primarily a 
philanthropist and reformer; the latter, a psychologist 
and educationalist. Pestalozzi succeeded in arousing 
Europe to the need of universal education and of vitaliz- 
ing the prevailing formalism in the schools, but he was 
unable with his vague and unsystematic utterances to 
give guidance and efficiency to the reform forces he had 
initiated. While he felt the need of beginning with sense 
perception for the sake of clear ideas, he had neither the 
time nor the training to construct a psychology beyond 
the traditional one of the times, nor to analyze the way 
in which the material gained by observation is assimi- 
lated. Herbart, on the other hand, did create a system 
of psychology that, while fanciful and mechanical, 
worked well as a basis for educational theory and prac- 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 343 

tice. In keeping with this psychology, he undertook to 
show how the ideas, which were the product of the Pesta- 
lozzian 'observation,' were assimilated through 'apper- 
ception/ and maintained the possibiUty of making all 
material tend toward moral development. This, he held, 
could be accomplished by use of proper courses and 
methods. In determining the subjects to be selected 
and articulated, he considered Pestalozzi's emphasis 
upon the study of the physical world to be merely a 
stepping-stone to his own 'moral revelation of the world.' peftdoMi's 
While the former educator made arithmetic, geography, t^^ihys^ca? 
natural science, reading, form study, drawing, writing, woridastei> 
and music the object of his consideration, and is indi- history and 

literature. 

rectly responsible for the modern reforms m teachmg 
these subjects, Herbart preferred to stress history, lan- 
guages, and literature, and, through his followers, brought - • 
about improved methods in their presentation. He 
also first undertook a careful analysis of the successive 
steps in all instruction, and by his methodical principles 
did much to introduce order and system into the work 
of the classroom, although it is now known that his 
conception of the way in which the human mind works 
is hardly tenable. 

A great drawback to the Herbartian doctrines is found 
in their formalization and exaggeration. For these Jf[Xwer^'°° 
tendencies his enthusiastic and literal-minded followers, 
rather than Herbart himself, have probably been to 
blame. He was himself too keen an observer to allow 
his doctrines to go upon all fours. He is ordinarily cred- 
ited by Herbartians with a psychology that takes no 
account of the innate characteristics of each mind, and 
holds that the mind is entirely built up by impressions ^ 



344 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

from the outside, but, while this is his main position, he 

occasionally recognizes that there must be certain native 

but Herbart predisDositions in the body which influence the soul in 

more sane and ^ ^ ^ ^ 

flexible. ouc direction or another. This limitation of complete 

plasticity by the pupil's individuality, and of the conse- 
quent influence of the teacher, causes him to perceive 
that "in order to gain an adequate knowledge of each 
pupil's capacity for education, observation is necessary — 
observation both of his thought masses and of his phys- 
ical nature." Again, while Herbart holds that every 
subject should, if possible, be presented in an attractive, 
interesting, and 'almost playlike' way, he does not 
justify that 'sugar-coated interest' which has so often 
put Herbartianism in bad odor. "A view that regards 
the end as a necessary evil to be rendered endurable by 
means of sweetmeats," says he, "implies an utter confu- 
sion of ideas; and if pupils are not given serious tasks to 
perform, they will not find out what they are able to do." 
Often, he realizes, "even the best method cannot secure 
an adequate degree of apperceiving attention from every 
pupil, and recourse must accordingly be had to the volun- 
tary attention, i. e., to the pupil's resolution." More- 
over, 'correlation' between different subjects, as well 
as between principles within the same subject, was ad- 
vocated by Herbart, but he felt that the attempt to make 
such ramifications should not be unlimited. Further, 
while Herbart made some effort in shaping the course of 
study to parallel the development of the individual with 
that of the race, it was Ziller that erected this procedure 
into a hard and fast theory of 'culture epochs.' But 
most common of all has been the tendency of his dis- 
ciples to pervert his attempt to bring about due sequence 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 345 

and arrangement into an inflexible schema in the recita- 
tion, and to make the formal steps an end rather than 
a means. Whereas, there is reason to believe that Her- 
bart never intended that all these steps should be carried 
out in every recitation, but felt that they applied to the 
organization of any subject as a whole, and that years 
might even elapse between the various steps. 

The Extension of His Doctrines in Germany. — At 
first the doctrines of Herbart were little known, but a 
quarter of a century after his death there sprang up two 
flourishing contemporary schools of Herbartianism. In 
its application of Herbart's theory, the school of Stoy 
for the most part held closely to the original form; but 
that headed by Ziller departed further and gave it a deldo^and 
more extreme interpretation. Tuiskon Ziller (1817- popularized. 
1882), both as teacher in a gymnasium and as professor 
at Leipzig, did much to popularize and develop Herbart's 
system. Through him was formed the Herbartian so- 
ciety known as the 'Association for the Scientific Study 
of Education,' which has since spread throughout Ger- 
many, He it was that elaborated the doctrines of 'cor- 
relation' and 'concentration,' and first definitely formu- 
lated the ' culture epochs' theory. "Every pupil should," 
he writes, "pass successively through each of the chief 
epochs of the general mental development of mankind 
suitable to his stage of development. The material of 
instruction, therefore, should be drawn from the thought 
material of that stage of historical development in cul- 
ture, which runs parallel with the present mental stage 
of the pupil." All these principles Ziller worked out in 
a curriculum for the eight years of the elementary school, 
which he centered around fairy tales, Robinson Crusoe^ 



346 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Stoy's practice 
school at Jena, 



continued by 
Rein. 



Lange and 
Frici. 



In Germany 
content and 
methods of 
education were 
greatly modi- 
fied. 



and selections from the Old and New Testaments. He, 
moreover, developed Herbart's ' formal stages of instruc- 
tion ' by dividing the first step and changing the name of 
the last. 

Karl Volkmar Stoy (i 8 15-1885), the founder of the 
other school, gave himself simply to a forceful restate- 
ment of the master's positions, but also established a 
most influential pedagogical seminary and practice school 
upon the original Herbartian basis at Jena. And eleven 
years later, Wilhelm Rein (1847- ), who had been 
a pupil of both Stoy and Ziller, succeeded the former in 
the direction of the practice school, and introduced there 
the elaborate development that had taken place since 
Herbart's time. He adopted Ziller 's 'concentration,' 
'culture epochs,' and other features, but made them a 
little more elastic by coordinating other material with 
the 'historical' center in the curriculum. Through him 
Jena became known as the great seat of Herbartianism. 
Other Germans to develop the principles of Herbart 
have been Lange and Frick, The Apperception of Karl 
Lange is an excellent combination of scientific insight 
and popular presentation. Otto Frick, director of the 
'Francke Institutions' at Halle (see p. 176), incHning 
more to the close interpretation of Stoy, devoted him- 
self to applying Herbartianism to the secondary schools, 
and outlined a course for the gymnasium. 

A throng of other German schoolmasters and pro- 
fessors have further adapted the doctrines of Herbart 
to school practice, and while their theories differ very 
largely from one another, from their common basis 
they are all properly designated 'Herbartian,' As 
a result of this continuous propaganda, the content 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 347 

and methods of the school curricula in Germany have 
been largely modified. Herbart's emphasis upon the 
importance to the secondary schools of literary and 
historical studies as a moral training has been adapted 
to the elementary schools by the later Herbartians in 
the form of story and biographical material. History 
has consequently attained a more prominent place 
in the curriculum, and is no longer auxiliary to read- 
ing and geography. It is regarded as a means of ^v°e™to°hfs- 
moral development, and the cultural features in the tory and litera- 
history of the German people are stressed more than the 
political. Ziller's plan for concentrating all studies about 
a core of history and Hterature, on the ground of thus 
producing ' a moral revelation of the world ' for the pupil, 
is in evidence everywhere. A twofold course, — Jewish 
history through Bible stories, and German history in the 
form of legends and tales, appears in every grade of the 
elementary school after the first two, and even in these 
lower classes there is some attempt to utilize Hterature as 
a moral training through the medium of fairy stories, 
fables, moral tales, Robinson Crusoe, and the various 
stories of the philanthropinists (see p. 225). 

Herbartianism in the United States. — Next to the 
land of its birth, the United States has been more in- 
fluenced by Herbartianism than any other country. Be- 
fore 1880 there were but few notices of Herbartianism in 
American educational hterature, and not many appeared 
during the following decade. The movement was fos- American 
tered largely by American teachers that were studying gty^^gj^^*^" 
with Rein at Tena during the last two decades of the Jenaintro- 

*' . * . 11- duced Herbar- 

century. Before 1890 nine Americans had taken their tianismiato 
degree there, and by the twentieth century more than states. 



348 A student's history of education 

fifty. These young men came back filled with the 
enthusiastic belief that Herbartian principles could 
supply a solution in systematic form for the many com- 
pHcated problems with which American education was 
then grappling, and began at once to propagate their 
Northern faith. The movement centered chiefly in northern IIH- 

lUinois the ^ , ^ '' 

center. nois and was especially strong in the normal schools. 

The staff of the State Normal University at this time 
included Charles DeGarmo, afterward professor of Ed- 
ucation at Cornell, Frank M. McMurry, now of the 
Teachers College, Columbia University, and his brother, 
Charles A. McMurry, now of the faculty of the George 
Peabody College for Teachers; and the practice school at 
the Normal University was the first to be estabHshed 
upon Herbartian principles. The Schoolmasters' Club 
of Illinois gave much of its time to a discussion of 
Herbartian principles, and the first Herbartian literature 
in the United States was rapidly produced. During the 
last decade of the century there appeared large numbers 
of articles, textbooks, treatises, and translations, includ- 
ing The Method of the Recitation and a variety of other 
works upon general and special methods by the Mc- 
Murrys. In 1892 The Herbart Club was founded to pro- 
mote a study of Herbartian principles and adapt them 
to American conditions, and during the first three years 
it spent its efforts in translating the words of Herbart 

The Herbart and in discussiug Herbartian topics only. In 180 s the 

Society and its ° f j yj ^ 

Year Book. name of the club was changed to the Herbart Society 
for the Scientific Study of Education, many non- 
Herbartians were admitted, the scope of the discussions 
was enlarged, and the pubhcation of a Year Book was 
begun. 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 349 

Then began the period of criticism and the formula- 
tion of American Herbartianism. The movement was 
vigorously opposed by many on the ground that it was Opposition, 
a foreign importation, was based upon absurd meta- 
physical presuppositions, or contained nothing new, 
but the disciples of Herbart stood vaUantly by their guns. 
Although not always certain in their own minds, they en- 
deavored to clear up all misunderstanding and confusion 
in the doctrines and to keep them practical through 
developing them in connection with actual experiments 
in teaching. They showed that the fanciful psychology 
of Herbart did not hold a determining place in his edu- 
cational thought, and that it might be rejected, without 
affecting the merit of his pedagogy. One by one the 
doctrines were introduced in the order of their concrete- 

r f ^ J i^' i i.* but growth of 

ness, — five formal steps, apperception, concentration, the movement, 
interest — and little attempt was made to weave them 
into a single system. The critical season did not long 
endure, and tne movement soon spread widely. By the 
close of the first year the Herbart Society had a member- 
ship of seven hundred, and the Herbartian principles 
were everywhere studied by local clubs and taught in 
schools and universities. In the report of the United 
States Commissioner of Education for 1894-1895, Dr. 
Harris stated: "There are at present more adherents of 
Herbart in the United States than in Germany." This, 
he beUeved, was due to the greater freedom of discussion 
that was allowed. The movement not only became an 
educational awakening, but it attained almost to the 
proportions of a cult. Moreover, many who hardly jj^^^jg^^^j^^ 
considered themselves Herbartians undertook to modify features 

. 1, / 1 adopted by 

and adapt the Herbartian principles, especially correla- others. 



350 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Amount of 
history in- 
creased in 
American 
schools, 



and wide sur- 
vey of litera- 
ture encour- 
aged. 



tion ' and ' concentration.' Francis W. Parker of Chicago, 
for example, among the phases of his educational prac- 
tice (cf. pp. 293 and 364), approached concentration so 
closely as to center the entire course of study around a 
hierarchy of natural and social sciences. And the Com- 
mittees of Ten and Fifteen, appointed by the National 
Education Association to report upon secondary and 
elementary education respectively, showed a strong Her- 
bartian influence in their recommendations of correlation. 
Largely in consequence of the development of Herbar- 
tianism, an increased amount and larger utilization of 
historical material became general also in American ele- 
mentary schools. A wide appreciation of the growth of 
morality, culture, and social life, rather than merely the 
development of patriotism, became the object in study- 
ing this subject. English and German history, as well as 
American, which alone was formerly taught, and some- 
times Greek, Roman, and Norse, appear in the curricula 
of many elementary schools, and, instead of being con- 
fined to the two upper classes, historical material is 
often presented from the third grade up. Biographical 
and historical stories are largely employed in the lower 
classes, while in the upper some attempt is made to use 
European history as a setting for American. A similar 
development in the amount and use of literature also 
has appeared in the course of the elementary schools, 
partly as a result of the Herbartian influence. Instead 
of brief selections from the English and American writers, 
or the poorer material that formerly appeared in the 
school readers, complete works of literature have begun 
to be studied in the elementary curriculum, and a wide 
and rapid survey of the great English classics has been 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 35 1 

encouraged in the place of merely reading for the sake 
of oral expression. Even in the lowest grades some at- 
tempt to introduce the classics of childhood has been 
made. 

While in these ways all elementary, and to some ex- 
tent secondary, schools have been affected, Herbartian- 
ism pure and simple has largely been abandoned for less 
dogmatic methods. Even the Herbart Society has 
ceased to foster a propaganda, and has since 1901 
dropped the first part of its name and been known as 
'The National Society for the Scientific Study of Edu- 
cation.' The later works of DeGarmo and Frank M. 
McMurry claim to be quite emancipated from Herbar- 
tianism. But, although professed Herbartians are now 
almost unknown in the United States, no other system of 
pedagogy, except that of Pestalozzi, has ever had so wide 
an influence upon American education and upon the 
thought and practice of teachers generally. 

Froebel's Early Life. — Let us now turn to Froebel, the 
other great successor of Pestalozzi, and to his develop- 
ment and extension of the master's principle of ' natural 
development.' Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (1782- 
1852) was born in a village of the Thiiringian forest. He 
tells us that this environment started within him a search 
for the mystic unity that he believed to exist amid the 
various phenomena of nature, but it is more likely that 
this attitude was developed through a brief residence 
(i 799-1800) at the University of Jena. The atmosphere ?un[ty' dl 
about this institution was charged with the idealistic J^^^'l -^^^^^ 
philosophy, the romantic movement, and the evolution- 's™, romanti- 

•^ T . . asm, and na- 

ary attitude in science. Froebel could not have escaped ture pWios- 
the constant discussions upon the philosophy of Fichte 



1 



352 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Adoption of 
teaching. 



and Schelling. He must likewise have fallen under the 
spell of the Jena romanticists, — the Schlegels, Tieck, 
and Novalis. The advanced attitude in science at Jena 
may also have impressed the youth. While much of the 
science instruction failed to make clear that inner rela- 
tion and mystic unity for which he sought, he must occa- 
sionally have caught glimpses of it in the lectures of 
professors belonging to the school of N atur-philosophie. 

His Experiences at Frankfort, Yverdon, and Berlin. — 
After leaving the university, Froebel was for four years 
groping for a niche in life. But he eventually (1805) met 
Anton Griiner, head of a Pestalozzian model school at 
Frankfort, who persuaded him of his fitness for teaching 
and gave him a position in the institution. Here he 
undertook a systematic study of Pestalozzianism, and, 
through the use of modeling in paper, pasteboard, and 
wood with his pupils, he came to see the value of motor 
expression as a means of education. He then withdrew 
to Yverdon and worked with Pestalozzi himself for two 
years (1808-18 10). There he greatly increased his 
knowledge of the play and development of children, 
music, and nature study, which were to play so impor- 
tant a part in his methods. Next, he went to the Uni- 
versity of Berlin to study mineralogy with Professor 
ofTaw of^^°° Weiss, and through the work there he finally crystallized 
his mystic law of 'unity.' He became fully "convinced 
of the demonstrable connection in all cosmic develop- 
ment," and declared that "thereafter my rocks and crys- 
tals served me as a mirror wherein I might discern man- 
kind, and man's development and history." 

The School at Keilhau. — While at Berlin, he met his 
lifelong assistants, Langethal and Middendorf , and took 



Study with 
Pestalozri. 



'unity.' 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 353 

them with him when he undertook the education of his 
five young nephews at Keilhau. Here he founded (1816) 
'The Universal German Institute of Education,' in through'^TiaT 
which self-expression, free development, and social par- ^^'^j^^'^^'^'^''^' 
ticipation were ruHng principles. Much of the training 
was obtained through play, and, except that the pupils 
were older, the germ of the kindergarten was already 
present. There was much practical work in the open 
air, in the garden about the schoolhouse, and in the 
building itself. The children built dams and mills, for- 
tresses and castles, and searched the woods for animals, 
birds, insects, and flowers. To popularize the institute, 
Froebel published a complete account of the theory 
practiced at Keilhau in his famous Education of Man Education of 
(1826). While this work is compressed, repetitious, and 
vague, and its doctrines had afterward to be corrected 
by experience, it contains the most systematic statement 
of his educational philosophy that Froebel ever made. 

Development of the Kindergarten.— But the school 
at Keilhau was too radical for the times, and soon found 
itself in serious straits. Froebel then went to Switzer- in Switzerland 

he began to de- 
land, and for five years (1832-1837) continued his educa- vise piay- 

tional experiments in various locations there. While and songs. 
conducting a model school at Burgdorf, it became ob- 
vious to him that ' ' all school education was yet without 
a proper initial foundation, and that, until the education 
of the nursery was reformed, nothing solid and worthy 
could be attained." The School of Infancy of Comenius 
(see p. 171) had been called to his attention, and the 
educational importance of play had come to appeal to 
him more strongly than ever. He began to study and 
devise playthings, games, songs, and bodily movements 



354 



A student's history of education 



First kinder- 
garten at 
Blankenburg. 



that would be of value in the development of small 
children, although at first he did not organize his ma- 
terials into a system. Then, two years later, he returned 
to Germany, and established a school for children be- | 
tween the ages of three and seven. This institution was 
located at Blankenburg, two miles from Keilhau, one 
of the most romantic spots in the Thiiringian Forest, 
and was, before long, appropriately christened 'Kinder- I 
garten' (i. e., garden in which children are the unfolding 
plants). Here he put into use the material he had in- 
vented in Switzerland, added new devices, and developed 
his system. The main features of this were the 'play 
songs' for mother and child and the series of 'gifts' 
and ' occupations ' (see pp. 3 58 f .) . During his seven years 
in Blankenburg, he constantly expanded his material, and 
the accounts of these additions have been collected in 

Later works, the works known generally as Pedagogics of the Kinder- 
garten, Education by Development, and Mother Play and 
Nursery Songs. 

While the kindergarten attracted considerable atten- 
tion, Froebel's want of financial abihty eventually com- 
pelled him to close the institution. After lecturing with 
much success for five years upon his system, he settled 
for the rest of his life near the famous mineral springs 

Final work at at Liebenstein in Saxe-Meiningen. During this period 

Liebenstein, " <• i 

and the Baron- he obtamcd the friendship and support of the Baroness 
' von Marenholtz-Biilow, who brought a large number of 
people of distinction in the political and educational 
world to see his work in operation, and wrote most in- 
teresting Reminiscences of Froebel's activities during 
the last thirteen years of his Ufe. But owing to a con- 
fusion of his principles with the socialistic doctrines of 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 355 

his nephew, Karl, a decree was promulgated in Prussia 
by the minister of education, closing all kindergartens 
there. Froebel never recovered from this unjust humilia- 
tion, and died within a year. 

Froebel's Fundamental Concept of * Unity.' — While 
Froebel's underlying principles go back to the develop- 
mental aspect of Pestalozzi's doctrines and even to 
Rousseau's naturaUsm, his conception of them, his f^om °Pesta- 
imagery, and statement, seem to be a product of the r^^s^u ^^^° 
ideahstic philosophy, romantic movement, and scientific 
attitude of the day. These tendencies seem to have 
been assimilated by Froebel largely through his residence 
in Jena and Berlin. His conclusions as to educational 
theory and practice would have been possible as infer- 
ences from a very different point of view, but as he de- 
veloped them logically and consistently with his meta- 
physical position, it may be of value to consider briefly r^uftanf^o^ 
the groundwork of the Froebelian philosophy. He re- ^^ university 

" . environment. 

garded the 'Absolute,' or God, as the self-conscious spirit 
from which originated both man and nature, and he 
consequently held to the unity of nature with the soul 
of man. His fundamental view of this organic unity 
appears in his general conception of the universe: "In 
all things," says he, ''there lives and reigns an eternal 
law. This all-controlling law is necessarily based on 
an all-pervading, energetic, living, self-conscious, and 
hence eternal Unity. This Unity is God. All things 
have come from the Divine Unity, from God, and have 
their origin in the Divine Unity, in God alone. All 
things Uve and have their being in and through the Di- 
vine Unity, in and through God. The divine effluence 
that lives in each thing is the essence of each thing." 



356 A student's history of education 

This fundamental mystic principle Froebel constantly 
Reiterations reiterates in various forms, and from it derives a number 
and subsidiary Qf subsidiary conceptious. These, however, play but 

concepts. •' ^ ' . 

a small part in his actual practice, and scarcely require 
consideration here. 

Motor Expression as His Method. — But Froebel also 
holds that, "while in every human being there lives hu- 
manity as a whole, in each one it is reaHzed and expressed 
in a wholly particular, pecuhar, personal, and unique 
manner." Thus he maintains that there is in every per- 
son at birth a coordinated, unified plan of his mature 
character, and that, if it is not marred or interfered with, 
it will develop naturally of itself. While he is not en- 
Education tirely consistent, and at times impHes that this natural 
lowing.' development must be guided and even shaped, in the 

main he reiterates Rousseau's doctrine that 'nature is 
right,' and clearly stands for a full and free expression 
of the instincts and impulses. Hence he insists that 
"education in instruction and training should necessarily 
be passive, following; not prescriptive, categorical, inter- 
fering." But in his conclusion as to the proper method 
for accomplishing this 'development,' Froebel naturally 
holds that it "should be brought about not in the way 
of dead imitation or mere copying, but in the way of 
Hving, spontaneous self-activity." By this principle of 
'Self-activity.' < self -activity ' as the method of education Froebel seeks 
not simply activity in response to suggestion or instruc- 
tion from parents or teachers, but activity of the child 
in carrying out his own impulses and decisions. In- 
dividuality must be developed by such activity, and self- 
hood given its rightful place as the guide to the child's 
powers when exercised in learning. Hence with this 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 357 

idea of development through 'self-activity' is connected 

his principle of 'creativeness,' by which new forms and 'Creativeness.' 

combinations are made and expression is given to new 

images and ideas. "Plastic material representation in 

life and through doing, united with thought and speech," 

he declares, "is by far more developing and cultivating 

than the merely verbal representation of ideas." 

The Social Aspect of Education. — His emphasis upon 
this psychological principle of motor expression under 
the head of 'self-activity' and 'creativeness' is the chief 
characteristic of Froebel's method. Rousseau had also 
recommended motor activity as a means of learning, but 
he had insisted upon an isolated and unsocial education 
for Emile, whereas Froebel stresses the social aspects 
of education quite as clearly as he does the principle 
of self-expression. In fact, he holds that increasing self- Seif-reaUzation 
realization, or individualization through 'self-activity,' participation, 
must come through a process of socialization. The 
social instinct is primal, and the individual can be 
truly educated only in the company of other human 
beings. The Hfe of the individual is necessarily bound 
up with participation in institutional Hfe. Each one 
of the various institutions of society in which the men- 
tality of the race has manifested itself — the home, the 
school, the church, the vocation, the state — becomes a 
medium for the activity of the individual, and at the 
same time a means of social control. As far as the child 
enters into the surrounding life, he is to receive the de- 
velopment needed for the present, and thereby also to Coaperatiye 
be prepared for the future. Through imitation of co- play, 
operative activities in play, he obtains not only physical, 
but intellectual and moral training. Such a moral and 



358 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



intellectual atmosphere Froebel sought to cultivate at 
Keilhau by cooperation in domestic labor, — 'Hfting, 
pulUng, carrying, digging, spHtting,' and through co- 
operative construction out of blocks of a chapel, castle, 
and other features of a village. Similarly, the kinder- 
garten was intended to ''represent a miniature state for 
children, in which the young citizen can learn to move 
freely, but with consideration for his Httle fellows." 

The Kindergarten. — Beside his basal principles of 
motor expression and social participation, Froebel made 
a third contribution to educational practice in advocating 
as a means of realizing these principles a school without 
books or set intellectual tasks, and permeated with play, 
outbooks^r^ freedom, and joy. In the kindergarten, 'self-activity' 
set tasks as his and ' creativeuess,' together with social cooperation, 
bution. found complete appHcation and concrete expression. 

The training there has always consisted of three co- 
ordinate forms of expression: (i) song, (2) movement 
and gesture, and (3) construction; and mingled with 
these and growing out of each is the use of language by 
the child. But these means, while separate, often co- 
operate with and interpret one another, and the process 
is connected as an organic whole. For example, when 
the story is told or read, it is expressed in song, drama- 
tized in movement and gesture, and illustrated by a 
construction from blocks, paper, clay, or other material. 
Mother Play. 'pj^g Mother Play and Nursery Songs were intended to 
exercise the infant's senses, limbs, and muscles, and, 
through the loving union between mother and child, 
draw both into intelUgent and agreeable relations with 
the common objects of life about them. The fifty 'play 
songs' are each connected with some simple nursery 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 359 

game, like 'pat-a-cake,' 'hide-and-seek,' or the imitation 
of some trade (Fig. 43), and are intended to correspond 
to a special physical, mental, or moral need of the child. 
The selection and order of the songs were determined 
with reference to the child's development, which ranges 
from almost reflex and instinctive movements up to an 
ability to represent his perceptions with drawings, accom- 
panied by considerable growth of the moral sense. Each 
song contains three parts: (i) a motto for the guidance 
of the mother; (2) a verse with the accompanying music, 
to sing to the child; and (3) a picture illustrating the 
verse. 

The 'gifts' and 'occupations' were both intended to 'Gifts,'- 
stimulate motor expression, but the 'gifts' combine and 
rearrange certain definite material without changing 
the form, while the 'occupations' reshape, modify, and 
transform their material. The emphasis in kindergarten 
practice has come to be transferred from the 'gifts' to 
the 'occupations,' which have been largely increased in 
range and number. Of the 'gifts,' the first consists of a first, 
box of six woolen balls of different colors. They are to 
be rolled about in play, and thus develop ideas of color, 
material, form, motion, direction, and muscular sensi- 
bihty. A sphere, cube, and cyUnder of hard wood com- 
pose the second 'gift.' Here, therefore, are found a secoad, 
known factor in the sphere and an unknown one in the 
cube. A comparison is made of the stability of the cube 
with the movabiHty of the sphere, and the two are har- 
monized in the cylinder, which possesses the character- 
istics of each. The third 'gift' is a large wooden cube third, 
divided into eight equal cubes, thus teaching the rela- 
tions of the parts to the whole and to one another, and 



360 



,)^ 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



and the other 
three, 



and 'occupa- 
tions. ' 



Superficial 
faults, 



making possible original constructions, such as arm- 
chairs, benches, thrones, doorways, monuments, or 
steps. The three following 'gifts' divide the cube in 
various ways so as to produce soHd bodies of different 
types and sizes, and excite an interest in number, relation, 
and form. From them the children are encouraged to 
construct geometrical figures and 'forms of beauty' or 
artistic designs. Beside the six regular 'gifts,' he also 
added 'tablets,' 'sticks,' and 'rings,' sometimes known 
as 'gifts seven. to nine.' This material introduces sur- 
faces, lines, and points in contrast with the preceding 
solids, and brings out the relations of area, outline, and 
circumference to volume. The 'occupations' comprise 
a long list of constructions with paper, sand, clay, wood, 
and other materials. Corresponding with the 'gifts' 
that deal with soUds, may be grouped 'occupations' in 
clay modehng, cardboard cutting, paper folding, and 
wood carving; and with those of surfaces may be asso- 
ciated mat and paper weaving, stick shaping, sewing, 
bead threading, paper pricking, and drawing. 

The Value and Influence of Froebel's Principles. — 
For one pursuing destructive criticism only, it would not 
be difficult to find flaws in both the theory and practice 
of Froebel. In the Mother Play the pictures are rough 
and poorly drawn, the music is crude, and the verses are 
lacking in rhythm, poetic spirit, and diction (Fig. 43). 
But the illustrations and songs served well the interests 
and needs of those for whom they were produced, and 
Froebel himself was not insistent that they should be used 
after more satisfactory compositions were found. Other 
criticism of his material has been made on the ground 
that it was especially adapted to German ideals, German 




Sclit niir nur ten 3in""frmiiini, 
CUid)' fdtnc jlunfl (r ubcn tiiiin : 
SDaJ ftti't, I'rtiigt ir jum Slurj ; 
SDoiS laiifl ifl. mad)t ir furj; 
SaiS Jl^utitf Hindu cr iirab ; 
Das fflaulic inactt er nliitt ; 
Wat trumni ift. mad;! cr (jlcid) ; 
©0 ifl an jTunf) cr rrid). 

DaS einjif nid)t il'iii sVniinr, 
3um ©anjcn fdinrU cr tf iii,it ; 
X'od), rcaa tomiut tn tcraua '( — 
2Iii3 33iilfcn wirb cin Jpoue ! 
Sin J;ait« fiir 'i gutc .ftiiib, 
J?(i§ c« b tin (Sltcrn pnl;', 
Die forgfam d beaatvtn 
23cr ©cfl'" unb fctli'tfcicfal'rcn. 

Dfii 3iiiitnfrniann iai iJiiib b'rum 
licl't, 

Dcr ibm ben Sefcug bed ^aufis 
(jiebt. 







Fig. 43. — Der Zimmermann (The Carpenter). 

(Reproduced by permission of D. Appltton and Company from the Eliot and Blow 
edition of Froebel's Mother Play.) 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 36 1 

children, and the relatively simple village life of Froebel's 
experience, and that it needs considerable modification bondage to 
to suit other countries and the industrial organization °^^ ' ^^^' 
of society to-day. Also the argument of 'formal disci- and fonnai 
pUne' for care and accuracy in the use of the gifts, and 
the insistence upon the employment of every part of 
each gift upon all occasions in the exact order mentioned 
by Froebel, have been shown to violate the principles 
of modern psychology. His more liberal disciples, how- 
ever, realize that it is the spirit of his underlying prin- 
ciples, and not the letter of his practice, that should be 
followed, and have constantly struggled to keep the 
kindergarten matter and methods in harmony with the 
times and the environment. 

A more serious hindrance to the acceptance of Froe- 
belianism has arisen from his peculiar mysticism and Greatest 

WC3.K.I1CSS 111 

symbolism. Since all things live and have their being symbolism and 
in and through God and the divine principle in each is "^^ "^™' 
the essence of its Ufe, everything is Hable to be con- 
sidered by Froebel as symboUc in its very nature, and 
he often resorts to fantastic and strained interpretations. 
Thus with Froebel the cube becomes the symbol of di- 
versity in unity, the faces and edges of crystals all have 
mystic meanings, and the numbers three and five reveal 
an inner significance. At times this symbolism descends Fantastic and 

. vague doc- 

into a Hteral and verbal pun, where it seems to a modern trines. 
that Froebel can hardly be in earnest. Further, he 
holds that general conceptions are impUcit in the child, 
and each of these can be awakened by 'adumbration,' 
that is, by presenting something that will symbolically 
represent that particular 'innate idea.' Thus, in treat- 
ing the gifts and games, he maintains that from a ball the 



362 A student's history of education 

pupils gather an abstract notion of 'unity.' Moreover, 

because God is the self-conscious spirit that originated 

both man and nature, and everything is interconnected, 

he believes that each part of the universe may throw 

Notion that Hght on every other part, and constantly holds that a 

iifumine^men- knowledge of external nature, — such as the formation 

[aws°^ ®°"^' of crystals, will enable one to comprehend the laws of the 

mind and of society. 

Unfortunately, this mystic symbolism, vague and ex- 
treme as it is, is regarded by the strict constructionists 
to°conser^a-'^' among the kindergartens as the most essential feature 
tives. in FroebeUanism, and they expect the innocents in their 

charge to reveal the symbolic effect of the material upon 
their minds. There is no real evidence for supposing 
that such associations between common objects and ab- 
stract conceptions exist for children. But such an im- 
aginary symbolic meaning may be forced upon an object 
Effect upon by the teacher, and pupils in conservative kindergartens 
soon learn to adopt certain phrases and attitudes that 
imply such mystic meaning. This often tends to foster 
insincerity and sentimentaUsm rather than to inculcate 
abstract truth through symbols. Had Froebel possessed 
the enlarged knowledge of biology, physiology, and 
psychology that is available for one living in the twen- 
tieth century, it is unlikely that he would have insisted 
upon the symbolic foundations for his pedagogy. His 
excellent practice is heavily handicapped by these inter- 
pretations, and might as easily have been inferred from 
very different positions in modern psychology. 

But Froebel has had a most happy effect upon educa- 
tion as a whole. In some respects he utilized features 
others, from othcr reformers. We can see that he adopted many 






DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 363 



of Pestalozzi's objective methods in geography, natural 
history, arithmetic, language, drawing, writing and read- 
ing, and constructive geometry; reiterated Rousseau's 
views upon the infallibility of nature; and advocated the 
physical training and excursions as a means of study that 
are stressed by both these reformers. In his use of stories, 
legends, fables, and fairy-tales, he paralleled his con- 
temporary, Herbart, in his influence upon the curriculum. 
But in his emphasis upon motor expression and social ^"\or'ex"res-° 
participation, together with his advocacy of a school sion, social 

i^ *^ ' ^ •' ^ participation 

without books or set tasks, Froebel was unique, and and informal 
made a most distinctive contribution to educational 
practice. And whenever the real significance of his 
principles has been comprehended, they have been recog- 
nized as the most essential laws in the educational 
process, and are valued as the means of all effective 
teaching. 

Froebel himself never fully worked out his theories in 
connection with schooUng beyond the kindergarten, but 
all stages of education have now come to reahze the value to°airstag^^°of 
of discovering and developing individuaUty by means of education. 
initiative, execution, and cooperation; and spontaneous 
activities, like play, construction, and occupational 
work, have become more and more the means to this 
end. For example, the 'busy work,' 'whittling,' 'clay- 
modeling,' 'sloyd,' and other types of 'manual training' 
have to a large degree sprung from the influence of j^gXougiT^'^ 
Froebel. Uno Cygnaeus (1810-1888), who started the Cygna 
manual training movement, owed his inspiration to 
Froebel and his own desire to extend the kindergarten 
occupations through the grades. As a result of his efforts, 
Finland in 1866 became the first country in the world to 



aaeus 



364 



A student's hi^ory of education 



Parker and 
Dewey. 



adopt manual training as an integral part of the course 
in the elementary and teacher training schools. In 
and Salomon. 1874, through the visit of Otto Salomon (1849-1907) 
to Cygnaeus, Sweden transformed its sloyd from a sys- 
tem of teaching the elements of trades to the more educa- 
tive method of manual training. This use of construc- 
tive and occupational work for educational purposes 
rather than for industrial efficiency soon spread through- 
out Europe, and was first suggested to the United States 
by the Centennial Exposition of 1876 at Philadelphia. 
Various types of modern educational theory and practice, 
especially those associated with experiments made in 
the United States, also reveal large elements of Froe- 
belian influence. Among these might be included the 
work of Colonel Parker (Fig. 40) and of Professor 
Joh n Dewey . The Froebelian emphasis upon motor 
expression, the social aspect of education, and informal 
schooHng are evident throughout Parker's work in his 
elementary school, and are even extended so as to in- 
clude speech and the language-arts. Similarly, Dewey's 
occupational work and industrial activities, which were 
used through the entire course of his 'experimental 
school' in Chicago, although not copied directly from 
Froebel, closely approached the modified practice of the 
kindergarten (see pp. 430 f.). 

The Spread of Froebelianism through Europe. — 
Directly after the death of Froebel, the kindergarten 
began to be spread through his devoted followers, es- 
Baroness von pecially Baroness voel Biilow. By means of her social 
all countries, positiou and knowledge of modern languages, she was 
enabled to become his great apostle throughout Europe. 
Having failed to obtain a revocation of the edict against 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 365 

the kindergarten (see p. 355) in Prussia, the baroness 
turned to foreign lands. She visited France, Belgium, 
Holland, Italy, Russia, and nearly every other section of 
Europe, and in 1867 was invited to speak before the 'Con- 
gress of Philosophers' at Frankfort. This distinguished 
gathering had been called to inquire into contemporary 
educational movements, and after her elucidation of Froe- 
behanism, a standing committee of the Congress, known 
as the 'Froebel Union,' was formed to study the system, foundation of 

' -^ "^ Froebel Union. 

The propaganda was soon everywhere eagerly embraced. 
Kindergartens, training schools, and journals devoted to 
the movement rapidly sprang up. While the kinder- 
garten was not generally adopted by the governments, 
it was widely estabhshed by voluntary means throughout 
Western Europe, and has since met with a noteworthy 
growth. Instruction in Froebelian principles is now 
generally required in most normal and teacher training 
institutions there. Sometimes, as in France and England, Results in 

Western 

it has been combined with the infant school movement, Europe, 
and has lost some of its most vital characteristics, but 
even in these cases the cross-fertilization has afforded 
abundant educational fruitage. Only in Germany, the 
native land of the kindergarten, has serious hostility to 
the idea remained. Kindergartens have, with few excep- 
tions, never been recognized there as genuine schools or 
part of the regular state system. Even to-day the Ger- 
man kindergarten is regarded as little more than a day 
nursery or convenient place to deposit small children 
and have them amused. 

The Kindergarten in the United States. — The de- 
velopment and influence of the kindergarten have been 
more marked in the United States than in any other 



366 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Voluntary 
basis through 
Elizabeth P. 
Peabody, 



Maria B5lte, 
Susan E. Blow, 



Emma Mar- 
wedel, and 
others. 



country. First attempts at a kindergarten in America 
were made shortly after the middle of the nineteenth 
century by educated Germans, who had emigrated to 
America because of the unsettled conditions at home. 
A more fruitful attempt was that of Elizabeth P. Pea- 
body at Boston in the early sixties. Notwithstanding 
the immediate success of this institution and the evident 
enjoyment of the children, Miss Peabody felt that she 
had not succeeded in getting the real spirit of Froebel, 
and in 1867 she went to study with his widow, who had 
been settled in Hamburg for several years. Upon her 
return the following year Miss Peabody corrected the 
errors in her work and established a periodical to explain 
and spread Froebelianism. The remainder of her life 
was spent in interesting parents, philanthropists, and 
school boards in the movement, and a service was done 
for the kindergarten in America almost equal to that of 
Baroness von Biilow in Europe. In 1868 through Miss 
Peabody the first training school for kindergartners in 
the United States was established at Boston. A similar 
institution was opened in New York by 1872 in charge 
of Maria Bolte, who had also studied with Frau Froebel. 
The same year saw the beginning of Susan E. Blow's 
work in St. Louis, where her free training school for 
kindergartners was opened. Another missionary efifort 
began in 1876 through Emma Marwedel, who was em- 
ployed to organize voluntary kindergartens and training 
classes throughout the chief centers of California. The 
kindergarten movement grew rapidly. Between 1870 
and 1890 in all the leading cities of the country sub- 
scriptions for kindergartens were raised by various 
philanthropic agencies, and by the close of the century 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 367 

there were about five hundred such voluntary associa- 
tions. 

But private foundations are restrictive, and it was not 
until the kindergarten began to be adopted by school 
systems that the movement became truly national in 
the United States. Boston in the early seventies added 
a few kindergartens to her public schools, but after several ^^^^°^ g^^ool 
years of trial gave them up on account of the expense, system in all 

•^ ° ^^ , ^ progressive 

The first permanent establishment under a city board cities, 
was made in 1873 ^t St. Louis through the efforts of 
Miss Blow. Twelve kindergartens were organized at 
first, but others were opened as rapidly as competent 
directors could be prepared at Miss Blow's training 
school. Within a decade there were more than fifty 
pubhc kindergartens and nearly eight thousand pupils in 
St. Louis. San Francisco authorized the addition of 
kindergartens to the public schools in 1880; and between 
that date and the end of the century New York, Boston, 
Philadelphia, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Providence, 
Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and nearly two hundred other 
progressive cities made the work an integral part of their 
system. About twenty of the cities employed a special 
supervisor to inspect the work. Excellent training 
schools for kindergartners are now maintained by half 
a hundred pubhc and quasi-public normal institutions. 

The Relative Influence of Pestalozzi, Herbart, and 
Froebel. — It is now obvious how large a part in the 
development of modern educational practice has been 
played by Herbart and Froebel. There are few tend- 
encies in the curricula and methods of the schools to- 
day that cannot in their beginnings be traced back to 
them, or to Pestalozzi, their master. But the reforms 



368 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Studies im- 
proved by 
Pestalozzi 



and Herbart, 



and training 
contributed by 
Froebel. 



Period of re- 
forms of Pesta- 
lozzi, 



Froebel, 



and Herbart. 



of all three find their roots in Rousseau (Fig. 44). His 
'naturalism' was continued by Pestalozzi (Fig. 45) 
in his 'development' and 'observation,' which were, 
in turn, further elaborated by Froebel and Herbart 
respectively (Fig. 47 and 46). Through his 'obser- 
vation' methods, Pestalozzi greatly improved the 
teaching of arithmetic, language work, geography, 
elementary science, drawing, writing, reading, and 
music, and, by means of Fellenberg's work, de- 
veloped industrial and philanthropic training. As a 
result of Herbart's moral and religious aim, marked 
advances in the teaching of history and literature have 
taken place, and, largely through his carefully wrought 
educational doctrines, order and system have every- 
where been introduced into instruction. From Froebel's 
mystic interpretation of 'natural development' we have 
obtained the kindergarten training for a period of Hfe 
hitherto largely neglected, the informal occupations, 
manual training, and other studies of motor expression, 
together with psychological and social principles that 
underlie every stage of education. Pestalozzi's reforms 
were felt in Europe throughout the first half of the nine- 
teenth century, but did not have any wide effect upon 
the United States until after the 'Oswego movement' 
in the sixties. The influence of Froebel appeared in 
Europe shortly after the middle of the century, and began 
to rise to its height in America about 1880. The Her- 
bartian theory and practice became popular in Germany 
between 1865 and 1885, while the growth of Herbar- 
tianism in the United States began about five years after 
the latter date. Hence the development of modern 
educational practice, due to these three great re- 




mU '^ ^ 




1^ JK ^j^ 




E y'^^ir^E) ''^^"^^m^ 


1 


m *w^ ^-\ ^K^^L 


y^ 


|( ' V-Sk^ 


m 


■ ' '^V^^^^^^^^Hh "^ 


^^^H 


■ ^ 4^'^HIIriH 


I^H 


K ^^ "^*r^n*** "i^By 1 JM 


hI^H 


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mm 



Fig. 44. — Jean Jacques Rousseau 
(1712-1778). 



Fig- 45-— Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi 
(1746-1827). 




I'ig. 4;;. Johann Friedrich Herbart 
(1776-1841). 



^^m£^ ' 


! 




til 




l| 




■^it^ 



Fig. 47. — Friedrich Wilhelm August 

Froebel 

(1782-1852). 

Great Educational Reformers 



DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 369 

formers, falls distinctly within the period of the nine- 
teenth century. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. VII; Great 
Educators (Macmillan, 191 2), chaps. X and XI; Monroe, Textbook 
(Macmillan, 1905), pp. 622-673; Parker, Modern Elementary 
Education (Ginn, 191 2), chaps. XVII and XVIII. Herbart's 
Science of Education (translated by Felkin), and Outlines of Educa- 
tional Doctrine (translated by Lange and De Garmo, Macmillan, 
1909), and Froebel's Education of Man (translated by Kallmann; 
Appleton, 1894), Pedagogics of the Kindergarten and Education by 
Development (translated by Jarvis; Appleton, 1897 and 1899), 
and Mother Play (translated by Eliot and Blow, Appleton, 1896), 
should be read at least cursorily. The best brief treatise on Her- 
bart and Herbartianism (Scribner, 1896) is that by De Garmo, C, 
a graphic description of The Herbartian Psychology (Heath, 1898) 
is given by Adams, J., in chap. Ill, and a history of The 
Doctrines of Herbart in the United States as a doctoral dissertation 
(University of Pennsylvania) by Randels, G. B. A good account 
of Froebel and Education by Self-Activity (Scribner, 1897) has been 
furnished by Bowen, H. C.; a conservative treatment of Kinder- 
garten Education {Education in the United States, edited by N. M. 
Butler, Monograph No. i), by Blow, Susan E.; an interesting trea- 
tise on Kindergarten in American Education (Macmillan, 1908), 
by Vandewalker, Nina C.;, and a critical account of The Psychology 
of the Kindergarten {Teachers College Record, vol. IV, pp. 377-408), 
by Thorndike, E. L. 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION 

OUTLINE 

The leading states of Western Europe and of Canada have, 
during the past century and a half, organized systems of education, 
which may prove suggestive. 

In Prussia, owing to a strong line of monarchs, state control has 
taken the place of ecclesiastical through a series of decrees and 
enactments. The people's schools are quite separate from the 
secondary schools. Three types of secondary institutions have 
developed, — the 'gymnasium,' with the classics as staples; the 
* real-school,' with modern languages and sciences; and the 'real- 
gymnasium,' with its compromise between the other two. The 
universities have likewise been emancipated from ecclesiastical 
control. 

In France, a highly centralized system has been developed. 
Napoleon united secondary and higher education in a single cor- 
poration; under Louis Philippe, an organization of elementary 
schools was made; and, during the third republic, elementary edu- 
cation has been made free, compulsory, and secular. The present 
secondary system — lyctes and communal colleges — began with 
Napoleon, and has now been dififerentiated into several courses. 
One-half of the universities estabhshed by Napoleon were sup- 
pressed during the Restoration, but since 1896 there has been a 
university in each of the sixteen 'academies,' save one. 

In England national education has grown out of the conflict 
of a number of social elements. The sentiment for universal 
training appeared toward the close of the eighteenth century, but 
not until 1870 were 'board schools' established. In 1899 a central 
Board of Education was created; and the Act of 1902, while per- 

370 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 37 1 

mitting voluntary schools to share in the local rates, unified the 
system and established secondary education at public expense. 
During the nineteenth century also the classical and ecclesiastical 
monopoly in secondary and higher education was largely broken. 

In Canada there have developed two types of educational 
control, — (i) the closely centralized system of public schools in 
Ontario, and (2) the public supervision of ecclesiastical schools 
in Quebec. 

National Systems of Education in Europe and Can- 
ada. — In previous chapters (XVII, XXI, XXIII) we 
have witnessed the gradual evolution in America of state 
systems of universal education out of the unorganized 
and rather aristocratic arrangement of schools that had 
first been transplanted from Europe in the seventeenth 
century. But development of a centraHzed organization 
of pubhc schools has not been confined to the United 
States. During the past century and a half, the leading 
powers of Western Europe and Canada have likewise or- 
ganized state systems of education, similar in some re- 
spects to those of the American union. All of these states ^u^atbn'^ree, 
have now established universal elementary education free orCTatuifous 
to all, although as yet in few instances are secondary secondary 
schools also gratuitous, and only Canada has welded her France alone 

secularized. 

elementary and secondary systems. France alone has 
completely secularized its system, but the public schools 
of the other nations, while still including religious in- 
struction, have been emancipated from ecclesiastical 
control, and are responsible to the civil authorities. In 
all of them school attendance is compulsory. Yet the 
educational system in none of these countries is identical 
with that in the United States, but has been adapted in 
each case to the genius and social organization of the 



372 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Suggestive, 
when under- 
stood his- 
torically. 



people concerned. Its characteristics must, therefore, 
be considerably modified, in order to be utilized or to 
prove suggestive to the United States or other nations, 
and can be understood only in the light of the educa- 
tional history of the particular country to which it be- 
longs. For an intelligent appreciation of these modern 
school systems, we must, therefore, trace the gradual 
development to their present form in response to the 
changing ideals of successive periods. 

The Beginning of State Control in Prussia. — We 
may look first at Germany. Up to the later years of 
the eighteenth century all stages of education in the 
various German states remained almost entirely under 
ecclesiastical control, but during this period the schools 
and universities were taken over by the state from the 
church, although the clergy still exercised a few preroga- 
tives, and centralized national systems were gradually 
organized. Among these states of Germany the first 
and most influential in the organization of universal 
education was Prussia. While each of the others is char- 
acterized by an educational history and pecuHarities of 
its own, this state may be taken as an illustration of the 
Rise of Prus- evolutiou of German school systems. The rise of Prussia, 

sian education , . ,, i, ,. . ,, , , 

due to eniight- educationally as well as pohtically, seems to have been 
espo s. ^^^ ^^ ^^^ strong Hohenzollern monarchs, — despotic, 
but thoroughly awake to the interests of their people. 
Although for nearly two centuries state control of educa- 
tion was carried on more or less through the medium 
of the church, its development was well under way by 
the seventeenth century. While the 'consistory,' or 
board of supervision, was still composed largely of the 
clergy, the schools were soon (1687) declared not to be 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 373 

simply church organizations, but to belong to the state, 
and some attempt was made to extend schools to the 
villages as well as cities. But the first noteworthy at- 
tempt to estabhsh compulsory attendance occurred 

during the reign of Frederick WilHam I. In 17 17 that 

monarch decreed that, wherever schools existed, children coLmfisory ^^^ 
should be required to attend during the winter, and in |"^]'^?^'^^^^, 
the summer whenever they could be spared by their liam i in 17 
parents, which must be at least once a week. He also 
founded the first teachers' seminary at Stettin from his 
own private means (1735), and the next year had a 
definite law passed, making education compulsory for 
children from six to twelve years of age. 

Educational Achievements of Frederick the Great. — 
His most important contribution, however, consisted in 
preparing the way for an educational movement that 
was to be greatly developed through his more able son, 
Frederick the Great. Frederick began by improving the 
administration of secondary education, and requiring 
that all vacancies on crown lands be filled by graduates 
from Hecker's normal school at BerHn. But the great 

step toward a national system was taken in 1763, 

when Frederick issued his General School Regulations for (2) General 
tne Country. Ihis decree required children to attend /iows decreed 
school from five until thirteen or fourteen, and until in 1763, 
they "know not only what is necessary of Christianity, " 
fluent reading, and writing, but can give answer in every- 
thing which they learn from the school books prescribed 
and approved by our consistory." If any pupils should 
arrive at this state of proficiency before thirteen or four- 
teen, they could even then leave school only through 
the ofi&cial certification of the teacher, minister, and 



374 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



for Catholic 
Schools; 



inspector. Provision was also made for the attendance 
of children who had to herd cattle or were too poor to 
pay the school fees. Sunday continuation schools were 
to be estabUshed for young people beyond the school 
age. Teachers must have attended Hecker's seminary 
and had to be examined and licensed by the inspector. 
This decree was two years later supplemented with 
hy^R^uiaaons similar Regulations for the Catholic Schools in Silesia, 
drawn up by Abbot Felbiger. The carrying out of the 
decree was, however, stubbornly opposed by many 
teachers, who could not meet the new requirements; by 
farmers, who objected to the loss of their children's 
time; and by the nobles, who feared the discontent and 
uprising of the peasants, in case they were educated. 
The execution of the regulation was still in the power of 
the clergy, and for some time it proved but Httle more 
than a pious wish. But Frederick strove hard to have 
it enforced, and it became the foundation for the more 
effective laws that have since become embodied in the 
Prussian school system. 

Educational Influence of Zedlitz. — After 1771 the 
educational work of Frederick was substantially aided 
by the appointment of Baron von Zedlitz as head of the 
Department of the Lutheran Church and School Affairs. 
This great minister had been much impressed by Base- 
dow's principles and experiments and by Rochow's ap- 
plication of the 'naturalistic' training, and through him 
village schools were greatly strengthened and enriched, 
a regular normal school was opened at Halberstadt, and 
the humanistic ideal of secondary education revived. 
A year after Frederick's death Zedhtz succeeded, even 
under the reactionary monarch, Frederick William II, 



(3) Establish- 
ment of Cen- 
tral Board of 
Administra- 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 375 

in further developing the nationalization of education, tion under 

, Frederick Wil 

In 1787 dLnOherschulcoUegium, or central board of school liam ii in 
administration, was appointed instead of the former 
church consistories. However, while the organization 
was supposed to be made up of educational experts, and 
Zedhtz was actually made chairman, the membership 
was mostly filled from the clergy, and the king refused 
to extend its jurisdiction to the higher schools. 

Despite the reactionary policy of the sovereign, the 
culmination of the attempts to establish a national non- 
sectarian system of education occurred during this reign. -^ "" 
In 1794 there was published the General Code, in which oj g^^ScoS 
the chapter upon education declared unequivocally that "^ ^794; 
"all schools and universities are under the supervision 
of the state, and are at all times subject to its examina- 
tion and inspection." Teachers were, therefore, not to 
be chosen without the consent of the state, and where 
their appointment was not vested in particular persons, 
it was to belong to the state. Teachers of all secondary 
schools were to be regarded as state ofiQcials. No child 
was to be excluded from the schools because of his reli- 
gion, nor compelled to stay for religious instruction 
when it differed from the belief in which he had been 
brought up. 

Foundation of the Ministry of Education and Further 
Progress. — While this comprehensive code met with 
much opposition from the clergy and the ignorant masses, 
and the next king, Frederick William III, weakly yielded 
at first, the humiliation of Prussia by Napoleon (1803) 
brought the country to a realization of the need of a 
centralized organization of the school system. The 
Oberachulcollegium was abolished, to get rid of the clerical 



;76 A student's history of education 



(5) Creation of domination that had crept in, and a T^nrf^n nf TTHnra- 

a Bureau of . • r 1 t->, r 1 t 

Education in UOR was Created as a section of the Department of the In- 
later' became a terior in 1807. The Bureau was within a decade erected 
kt'ry'^and the'a i^ito a Separate Department or Ministry of Education, 
organ^'d.^'^ Eight years later (1825) the state was divided into educa- 
tional provinces; and a SchulcoUegium, or administrative 
board, with considerable independence, but subject to the 
minister, was established over each province. Since then 
there have been many further developments, and prov- 
inces themselves are now divided into 'governments,' 
each of which has a ' school commission ' over it, and every 
government is divided into 'districts,' whose chief ofi&cer 
is a 'school inspector.' Under the district inspector are 
local inspectors, and each separate school also has a local 
board, to take charge of repairs, supplies, and other ex- 
ternal matters. 

Thus the supreme management of the schools has been 
gradually coming into the hands of the state for nearly 
two centuries. The decrees of 1717 and 1763, the estab- 
lishment of the Oherschulcollegium in 1787, the General 
Code promulgated in 1794, the foundation of a distinct 
civic administration of education in 1807, are the mile- 
stones that mark the way to state control. But, while 
the influence of the church has been constantly diminish- 
ing, many of the board members are ministers or priests 
and the inspectors come mostly from the clergy. More- 
over, religious instruction forms part of the course in 
every school, although it is given at such an hour 
that any pupil may withdraw if the teaching is con- 
trary to the faith in which he has been reared. The 
secondary schools are largely interdenominational, 
but in elementary education there are separate schools 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 377 

for Catholics and Protestants, alike supported by the 

state. *-'^t!;X2X^'^-- 

The Elementary System. — Prussia, like most of the 
principal states of Europe, as a result of their educational 
history, has its elementary and secondary systems quite 
separate and distinct from each other (Fig. 48). The 
universities continue the work of the gymnasiums and 
real-schools, but these two latter institutions parallel the 
work of the Volksschulen (people's schools), rather than Voiksschtdm, 
supplement it. The course of the secondary school ordi- 
narily occupies the pupil from nine to eighteen years of 
age, while that of the elementary school carries him from 
six to fourteen, and after the first three years it is practi- 
cally impossible to transfer from the elementary to the 
secondary system. A pupil cannot enter a gymnasium or 
real-school after completing the people's school, and the 
only further training he can obtain is that of the Fort- 
bildungschulen, or 'continuation schools,' which supple- 'Continuation 
ment the system (seep. 420). The people's schools are 
gratuitous and are attended mostly by the children of 
the lower classes, while the gymnasiums charge a tui- 
tion fee and are patronized by the professional classes 
and aristocracy. Hence the line between elementary 
and secondary education in Prussia is longitudinal and 
not latitudinal, as it is in the United States; the distinc- 
tion is one of wealth and social status rather than of 
educational grade and advancement. There are also 
some Mittelschulen (middle schools) for the middle a.nd Mitid- 
classes of people, who cannot send their children to 
the secondary schools, and yet can afford some 
exclusiveness. They have one more class than the 
people's schools, include a foreign language during 



378 



A student's history of education 



the last three years, and require teachers with a better 
training. 
The Secondary System. — The main types of secondary 
^XcAXtf"^ schools in Prussia are the Gymnasien (see p. 114), with 
the classic languages as the main feature of their course, 
and the Realschulen, or real-schools (see p. 176), charac- 
terized by larger amounts of the modern languages, 
mathematics, and the natural sciences. For more than 
a century after the first real-school was opened in Berlin 
by Hecker (1747), this type of institution had only six 
years in its course, and was considered inferior to the 
gymnasium. By the ministerial decree of 1859, how- 
ever, two classes of real-schools were recognized, and 
those of the first class had a course of nine years, and 
included Latin, but not Greek. They were given full 
standing as secondary schools, and graduates were 
granted admission to the universities, except for the 
study of theology, medicine, or law. The course of the 
second class of these institutions contained no Latin, 
and was but six years in length. In 1882 the compromise 
character of the course of the first class of institutions 
led to their being designated as Realgymnasien, while the 
second class in some instances had their work extended 
to nine years and became known as Oberrealschulen. 
The graduates were then allowed the privilege of study- 
ing at the universities in mathematics and the natural 
sciences. Since 1901 the university courses have been 
thrown open to graduates of any of the three t3^es of 
secondary schools, except that, to be eligible for theology, 
one must have completed the course of a gymnasium, 
and for medicine, the course of a real-gymnasium at least. 
Besides these schools that have been mentioned, in rural 



Realgymna- 
sien and 
Oherreal- 
tchulen; 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 379 

districts where a complete course cannot be maintained, 
there are often secondary institutions that do not carry 
the student more than six years. These are known, 
according to the curriculum, as Progymnasien, Real- 
progymnasien, and Realschulen. The first two classes 
are far less common than institutions with the longer 
course of the same character, but the Realschulen are s«-year 

' courses; 

nearly twice as numerous as the Oberrealschulen. 

Since these three types of secondary institutions are 
so distinct from each other (Fig. 48), it is evident that a 
parent is forced to decide the future career of his boy at 
nine years, long before his special abihty can be known. 
If he once enters a real-school, he can never transfer to a 
gymnasium, because the Latin begins in the lowest class 
of the latter course, nor can he enter the gymnasium from 
the real-gymnasium, after twelve, since he has had no 
Greek. To overcome this objection, during the past 
quarter of a century efforts have been made to delay the 
irrevocable decision by grouping all three courses as one 
institution and making them identical as long as possible. 
In secondary schools of this new sort, French is usually 
the only foreign language taught for the first three years. 
Then the course, divides, and one section takes up Latin 
and the other English. After two years more a further 
bifurcation takes place in the Latin section, and one 
group begins with Greek, while the other studies English. 
These institutions are known as Reformschulen (Fig. 48), ^^^'•'»^^*«^«''- 
and the plan was first introduced at Frankfort in 1892. 
The ' reform schools ' are now growing rapidly, and there 
is evident an increasing tendency to postpone the choice 
of courses as long as possible. The three years of train- 
ing preliminary to admission to a secondary school of 



the Vorschule. 



380 A STUDENT^S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

any type may be obtained through the people's or the 
middle schools. But there has also grown up, as an at- 
tachment of the secondary schools, a Vorschule (prepara- 
tory school), to perform this function for pupils of the 
more exclusive classes. 

Higher Education. — Like the other stages of educa- 
tion, the universities are now emancipated from ecclesias- 
tical control, and may be regarded as part of the national 
system of education. The university is now coordinate 
and under the same authority with the church, for both 
statrTasUtu- ^.re legally state institutions. Universities can, there- 
Sed^by^°"" fo^^' be estabUshed only by the state or with the ap- 
chartersand proval of the State. In general, however, they are not 
controlled by legislation, but through charters and special 
decrees of the minister of education. As their income 
from endowments and fees is very small, they are for the 
most part supported by the state. They are managed 
internally by the rector and senate. The rector is an- 
nually chosen from their nimiber by the full professors, 
with the approval of the minister, and the senate is a 
committee from the various faculties. The professors 
are regarded as civil servants with definite privileges, 
and they are appointed by the minister, although the 
suggestions of the faculty concerned are usually re- 
spected. 

During the nineteenth century new institutions for 
the cultivation of science in appUcation to practical and 
technological purposes have developed from technical 
schools of a more elementary character. While known 
]jochschvlen ^^ 'technical high schools' {Technische Hochschulen), 
they are institutions of higher learning, and exist side by 
side with the universities. They include schools of 



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THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 38 1 

engineering, mining, forestry, agriculture, veterinary 
medicine, and commerce. 

Educational Development in France. — The develop- 
ment of a centralized system of education in France be- 
gan almost a century later than in Germany. During 
the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century the 
different monarchic powers were not at all favorable to 
training the masses, and popular education was badly 
neglected. It required several revolutions in govern- 
ment and the establishment of a permanent republic, 
to break the old traditions completely, and to make it 
evident that universal suffrage should be accompanied 
by universal education. Just after the middle of the 
eighteenth century the revolutionary spirit began to pst agitation 
manifest itself with the appearance of Rousseau's Emile education dur- 

/ N , e ^ • ' 111 ing the Revolu- 

(see p. 222 j, and, except for the trammg started by the tion. 
Christian Brothers (see p. 140), the first serious atten- 
tion was given to elementary education. RoUand, to 
whom a general plan for reorganization had been com- 
mitted, recommended universal education and an ade- 
quate number of training schools for teachers. While 
his proposals were not adopted, they were the basis of 
much of the short-lived legislation that arose during 
the Revolution, and of the great principles of educational 
administration that have since been estabHshed. 

Napoleon, from the beginning, endeavored to reorgan- 
ize education upon a better basis, and when he had 
become emperor, ordered all the lycees, secondary col- 
leges, and faculties of higher education to be united in a 
single corporation, dependent upon the state and known 
as the 'University of France' (1808). This decree of Napoleon and 

,..,.,,,, . the University 

centralization divided the country mto twenty-seven of France. 



382 A student's history of education 

administrative 'academies,' each of which was to estab- 
lish university faculties of letters and science near the 
principal lycees. 

This organization, however, did not include elementary 
education, and little attempt was made to provide for 
schools of this grade before the reign of Louis Philippe. 
Upon the advice of his great minister of education, 
G^Izof^ima Guizot, that monarch organized primary education, 
schools begaa. requiring a school for each commune, or at least for a 
group of two or three communes, and starting higher 
primary schools in the department capitals and in com- 
munes of over six thousand inhabitants (1833). He also 
instituted inspectors of primary schools, and established 
department normal schools under the more effective 
control of the state authorities. The plan for higher 
primary schools was never fully realized, and the insti- 
tutions of this sort that had been established disappeared 
during the second empire. The reactionary law of Fal- 
loux (1850) did not even mention these schools, but en- 
couraged the development of denominational schools. 

The Primary School System. — Guizot, however, had 

given a permanent impulse to popular education, and 

during the third republic foundations for a national sys- 

Under third tem of education have rapidly been laid. Schools have 

repubhc pri- 
mary system been brought into the smallest villages, and elementary 

' education has been made free to all (1881) and compul- 
sory between the ages of six and thirteen (1882). To 
provide trained teachers, every department has been 
sch™k required to provide a normal school for teachers of each 

sex; and two higher normal schools, one for men and 
one for women, to train teachers for the departmental 
normal schools, have been opened by the state (1882). 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 383 

The higher primary schools have been reestablished and Higher pri- 
mary and con- 
extended (1898), and 'supplementary courses' offered tinuation 

for pupils remaining at the lower primary schools after 
graduation. The studies in the supplementary courses 
are technical, as well as general, and some of the higher 
primary schools have been established for vocational 
training rather than Hterary. In addition, there are 
continuation 'schools of manual apprenticeship' in the 
various communes, subsidized by the state for industrial 
and agricultural education, and five large schools for 
training in special crafts have been organized in Paris. 
Institutions for children between two and six years of 
age became part of the primary system in the days of ^hook.^ 
Guizot (1833), and half a century later the present name, 
ecoles maternelles (see p. 244), was adopted (1881), al- 
though there have since been marked reforms made in 
the curriculum. 

Secularization of the school system has also gradually Secularization, 
taken place. First, the courses of study were secularized 
by the substitution of civic and moral instruction for 
religious (1881); next, the instructional force was secu- 
larized by providing that members of the clergy should 
no longer be employed in the public schools (1886), and 
by recognizing public school teachers as state officers 
(1889); and finally, the schools themselves were com- 
pletely secularized by compelling the teaching orders to 
report to the state authorities (1902), and afterwards 
by closing the free schools directed by them (1904). 
Thus within a generation universal elementary education 
has been established in France and brought completely 
under state control. 

The Secondary System. — As in Prussia, the secondary 



384 



A student's history of education 



Development 
of lycees and 
communal 
colleges. 



Organization 
of lycees 



and colleges. 



school system of France does not connect with the pri- 
mary, but is quite separate and distinct (Fig. 49). The 
training has, since the time of Napoleon, been furnished 
chiefly by the lycees and communal colleges. During the 
Restoration (1814-1830) and the reign of Louis Philippe 
(1830- 1 848) the lycees came to be called 'royal colleges,' 
but, with the advent of the second republic (1848-185 1), 
the Napoleonic name was restored and the curricula were 
completely reorganized. By this revision some elas- 
ticity was introduced into the last three years of the lycee 
by a bifurcation into a literary and a scientific course, 
and during the third republic further elections were in- 
troduced, until finally (1902) four distinct courses were 
estabhshed. In the leading lycees and colleges special 
preparation is also afforded for schools like the military 
institution of St. Cyr or the Polytechnic of Paris; and 
in some there is a short course of three or four years in 
modern languages and sciences that in function closely 
approaches that of the German real-school. 

The boys ordinarily begin the first ' cycle ' of the lycee 
or college at ten years of age, and while they may transfer 
from the primary system at this stage, in most lycees 
and colleges there are preparatory classes to train the 
pupil from six to ten. The second 'cycle,' during which 
the differentiation in courses largely occurs, takes the 
pupil from fourteen to seventeen, and leads upon com- 
pletion to the bachelor's degree. Education in a lycee 
or college is not gratuitous, but the income from tuition 
fees is so small as to cover but a small fraction of the cost, 
and the rest is contributed by the state. The communal 
colleges differ from the lycees in being local, and they 
are maintained by the communes, as well as by the state. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 385 

They have not the same standing, and the same attain- 
ments are not required of their professors. Until 1880 
there were no lycees and communal colleges for girls, and 
convents and private schools furnished the only means Secondary in- 
of female education. Even now the usual course in the for girls. 
public secondary institutions for girls is two years shorter 
than in those for boys. 

The Institutions of Higher Education. — More than 
one-half of the universities established in the various 
'academies' by Napoleon were suppressed as soon as fnd'restoration 
the monarchy was restored. But about half a dozen °!,^^^ univer- 

. . ... sities. 

were reopened in the reign of Louis Philippe, and were 
gradually improved by the addition of new chairs. Be- 
ginning in 1885, a number of decrees established a gen- 
eral council of faculties in each academy to coordinate 
the different courses and studies, and in 1896 a law was 
passed, which established a university in each of the six- 
teen 'academies,' except one. These universities differ 
greatly in size, but all grant the license, or master's de- 
gree, and the doctorate. The university degrees are Degrees, 
ordinarily conferred in the name of the state and carry 
certain definite rights with them, but of late years a 
new type of degree, 'doctorate of the university,' is 
granted upon easier terms to foreigners more desirous 
of the degree than of its state privileges. In Paris, be- 
sides the university, there is the College of France, which 
still endeavors to foster freedom of thought (see p. no), 
and a dozen other institutions of university grade, con- pt^er higher 

•' ° institutions. 

nected with some special line, have been established. 

Centralized Administration of the French Education. — 
The centralization of education is even more complete in 
France than in Germany. The supreme head of the 



386 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Duties of 
minister, 



rectors. 



prefects, 



system is the minister of education. He is immediately 
assisted by three directors, one each for primary, second- 
ary, and higher education. A rector is in charge of 
each of the 'academies,' except Paris, where the minister 
nominally holds the oflSce and a vice rector performs 
the duties. The rector has authority over all three fields 
of education in his academy, but does not appoint the 
teachers. That oflSice is performed by the prefect, or 
head of each civil department, upon the recommenda- 
tion of the academy inspector. There is also a depart- 
mental council, presided over by the prefect, that ap- 
points delegates in each canton, to take charge of the 
school premises and equipment. Further organization is 
effected through the maintenance of a complete corps of 
and inspectors, general, academy, and primary inspectors. 

.1 ,, Early Development of English Education. — In Eng- 

land the nationahzation of education was delayed even 
,^ longer than in France. This country was never con- 



\j 




trolled by enlightened despots, who could, as in Ger- 
many, force the growth of public educational sentiment, 
nor was it overwhelmed by the sweep of a great revolu- 
tion, destroying, as in France, all opposition to popular 
progress. National education in England has gradually 
Slow evolution, grown out of the conflict of a number of elements repre- 
sented in its society. It has been the product of a series 
of compromises among many different factors, — the 
church, state, economic conditions, private enterprise, 
and philanthropy. For several centuries education was 
regarded as a function-of-the church^nd fajnily, and the 
sentiment for universal training was retarded by the 
attitude of the ';pper classes, who strove to keep the poor 
in ignorance and to maintain the educational control 



Church mo 
nopoiy. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 387 

of the church. This domination was first seriously chal- 
lenged in the eighteenth century, and while the training 
then furnished through the Society for the Promotion of 
Christian Knowledge, the Sunday schools, and other 
philanthropic institutions (see pp. 232 £f.), was rather Philanthropic 
meager, these organizations, together with the 'moni- "' 
torial' instruction of the British and Foreign, and the 
National Societies (see pp. 240 f.), greatly advanced the 
cause of universal education. And toward the close of 
the century there began to appear a new point of view, 
especially with men like Bentham, Blackstone, Robert 
Owen, and Adam Smith, who advocated universal educa- 
tion, compulsory attendance, and a national system of 
schools. 

Educational Movements in the Nineteenth Century. — 
The theory of these great thinkers was somewhat in 
advance of the times, but, early in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, social changes began to favor better educational First signs of 
opportunities. The Factory Act (1802) provided for the 
obUgatory training of apprentices; Mr. Whi thread intro- 
duced (1807) a bill to permit the civic ofiScials of any 
township or parish to estabhsh schools for the poor 
wherever none existed; and Brougham, while losing his 
bill for popular education (1820), previously secured 
two commissions of inquiry on school facilities. In 1832, 
the passage of a reform bill, which largely increased the 
suffrage, aroused Parhament to the need of educating 
the masses, and the next year the first grant, £20,000, ^gftan^'^^j^nt 
was made for elementary education. This sum was to 1111833. 
be used solely to aid in building schoolhouses for which 
subscriptions had been privately obtained, and so could 
be passed as a vote of 'supply,' without referring it 



388 A student's history of education 

to the House of Lords. For lack of a government organ- 
ization of education, it was apportioned through the 
National and the British and Foreign Societies (see 
p. 240). Governmental activities constantly increased. 
In 1839 the annual grant was increased to £30,000 
and allowed to be used for elementary education with- 
out restriction. In the same year, a separate com- 
Commiuee o^f_^ mittee of the Privy Council was designated to ad- 
in 1839. minister the educational grants; and in 1856 a Vice 

President was appointed to act as chairman of this 
educational committee. Then, in 1861, through another 
commission on popular education, it was arranged to 
base the grant to any school upon the results shown by 
*^*y™fP* Rft ^^^ pupils in the governmental examinations. This 'pay- 
ment by results ' was intended to increase efficiency, but, 
used as a sole means of testing, it soon proved narrowing 
and unfair, and had to be supplemented by the gen- 
eral opinion formed of each school by the inspectors. 
Yet it somewhat increased the efficiency of the work. 

Agitation in behalf of universal education continued, 
and organizations like the 'Lancashire Public School 
Association' of Manchester (1847) and 'The League' 
of Birmingham (1869) spread rapidly through the manu- 
facturing centers. And when the franchise was further 
extended in 1868, the necessity for preparing milHons of 
the common people for new responsibiUties in public 
In 1870 estab- affairs led in 1870 to the passage of the epoch-making 
'board schools', bill of William E. Forster. Under this act ' board schools,' 
local 'rates,' as or institutions in charge of a board chosen by the people 
as gran s. ^^ ^-^q community, were to be established wherever a 
deficiency in the existing accommodations required it. 
The 'voluntary,' or denominational schools, most of 



• THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 389 

which belonged to the Church of England, were to con- 
tinue to share in the government grants upon equal 
terms with the new institutions, but the latter had also 
the benefit of local 'rates.' Elementary instruction in 
all schools had to be open to government inspection, and 
the amount of the grant was partly determined by the 
report of the inspectors. The board schools were for- 
bidden to allow "any religious catechism or religious 
formulary, which is distinctive of any particular denomi- 
nation;" and religious instruction in either type of school 
had to be placed at the beginning or end of the school 
session, so that, under the ' conscience clause ' of the act, 
any scholar might conveniently withdraw at that time. 

This act of 1870 was, of course, the magna charta of 
national education, and has become the basis of much 
school legislation. The compromise in the bill that 
allowed the voluntary schools, with their sectarian in- 
struction, to continue receiving government support, 
however, prevented a logical and consistent system from 
being established. The dual system of elementary 
schools continued to be developed in a variety of enact- 
ments. Compulsory attendance laws were passed (1876, au^da^""^ 
1880), the minimum age of exemption was set first at minimum age, 
eleven years of age, and then raised to twelve (1893, 
1899), and an extra grant, to take the place of tuition free tuition, 
fees (1891), made it possible for most schools to become 
absolutely free. Finally (1899), there was created a 
central Board of Education, which assumed the functions EducaSon. ° 
of the Committee of Privy Council on Education and 
similar agencies for managing educational interests. 

Subsequent Educational Movements.— Within a gen- 
eration of existence the board schools met with a phenom- 



39° 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



In 1902 'volun- 
tary ' schools 
also allowed 
local rates. 



but dual sys- 
tem swept 
away, 



enal growth, and came to include about seventy per cent 
of the pupils. They were spending about half as much 
again upon each pupil as were the voluntary schools, 
and were able to engage a much better staff of teachers. 
This extension of civil influence in education was bitterly 
opposed by the Established Church, and when the con- 
servatives came into power through the assistance of the 
clergy, they passed the act of 1902, whereby the de- 
nominational schools were permitted to share also in the 
local rates. While under this act the administration of 
both board and voluntary schools was now centralized 
in the county and city councils, the immediate supervi- 
sion of instruction in the individual schools was placed 
in the hands of a board of managers; and, despite their 
receipt of local taxes, the voluntary schools were required 
to have but two of their managers appointed by the 
council, and the other four were still selected by the 
denomination. Serious opposition to the enforcement of 
the new law arose among nonconformists and others, 
and coercive measures were taken by the government. 
The new act, however, while unfair to those outside the 
Church of England, tended to sweep away the dual sys- 
tem of public and church schools, since both were com- 
ing to rest upon a basis of pubHc control and support. 
Since 1902 all elementary schools have been considered 
as part of one comprehensive system, and the board 
schools have been distinguished as 'provided schools' 
and the voluntary as 'nonprovided.' Moreover, under 
the legislation of 1902 steps were also taken to coordinate 
secondary with elementary education, and bring it 
somewhat within the public system. The board schools 
had early in their existence begun to develop upward into 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 39 1 

secondary education and before long had come to com- 
pete with the older grammar and public schools, but in 
1900 the 'Cockerton judgment' forbade the use of local 
rates for other instruction than elementary, and it re- 
mained for the new act to impose upon councils the duty 
to support instruction in subjects beyond the elementary instruction 
work. The Board of Education was also empowered to puWk expe^e. 
inspect the work of the great public schools and other 
endowed secondary institutions, and to allow grants to 
all schools meeting the conditions of the Board. 

After the liberals returned to power, they continued 
the conservatives' policy of granting local rates to all 
elementary schools, and of bringing secondary education 
under public support and control. While the education 
bill of 1906, which was kept from passage by the House defeated!°^ 
of Lords, did not recognize church schools as such, and 
insisted upon bringing them under the complete control 
of the public authorities, it made no attempt to return 
to the former dual system of schools and the isolation of 
secondary from elementary education. It still held 
also to religious, and, under safeguards, even to sectarian 
instruction in the elementary schools, and may yet be 
passed in a revised form. A voluntary committee for a 
'resettlement in English elementary education,' through 
the mediation of the President of the Board of Education 
and the Archbishop of Canterbury, has formulated a 
plan, which concedes the principle of public control and ^ut new plan, 
support for all elementary schools and reUgious freedom schools under 

. • 1 1 1 • r 1 public control. 

for teachers and pupils, but provides local option for the 
continuance of denominational schools. Thus, while 
England is not prepared to adopt a secular system, like 
that of France and the United States, and has not yet 



392 A student's history of education 

fully articulated its secondary education with elementary, 
(Fig. 50), it is upon the high road to a complete central- 
ization of school administration in the national gov- 
ernment. 
During the nineteenth century also the classical and 
SciesStica?'^ ccclesiastical monopoly in secondary and higher educa- 
brokenin ^*-*^ ^^^ largely brokeu. All the older public and gram- 
secondary and Yna.Y schools (sce pp. 412 f.) developed 'modern sides,' and 

higher educa- \ jrt- -r / ± 

tion. during the Victorian era a number of new schools were 

founded, which gave considerable attention to the mod- 
ern languages and the sciences from the start. A recog- 
nition of the scientific ideals began also to appear in 
the curriculum of Cambridge (185 1) and Oxford (1853), 
and the theological requirements for a degree were 
dropped (1856). By the last quarter of the century ac- 
tual laboratories had been introduced, and students 
were freed from all doctrinal tests at both universities. 
Moreover, new universities, better adjusted to modern 
demands and more closely related to the school systems 
and the civil government, began to arise in manufactur- 
ing centers. Since 1889 such municipal or 'provincial' 
institutions as the Universities of Birmingham, Man- 
chester, Leeds, Liverpool, and Bristol have sprung up, 
and the University of London, started as an examining 
body in 1836, has become a teaching institution. 

Development of Education in the Dominion of Can- 
ada. — Canada developed schools in very early days. In 
the beginning education was cared for in the four prov- 
inces separately, and when the Dominion of Canada was 
finally formed (1867), the federal government left to 
each province the administration of public education 
within its borders. The same autonomy was extended 



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THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 393 

to the provinces that have since been admitted to the 
federation. Two types of educational control, — state Two types, 
and ecclesiastical, have been developing from the first. 
The former method is best illustrated by the system of 
Ontario; and the latter by that of Quebec. Ontario d) Ontario and 

T-« 1 1 o (2) Quebec. 

was settled mostly by emigrants from England, Scot- 
land, and the United States, and practically all brought 
with them the concept of pubHc control of education. 
The French Cathohcs of Quebec, on the other hand, 
naturally followed their traditions of parish schools. 

The Public School System of Ontario. — The system 
of schools in Ontario began with the passage of its Com- 
mon Schools Act in 1846. This was formulated after a 
careful study of the systems of Massachusetts, New 
York, and the European states, and included excellent 
elements from various systems and many original fea- 
tures of value. By 1871 this fundamental law had come 
to include free tuition, compulsory attendance, county 
inspection, and uniform examinations. In 1876 an even 
greater centrahzation of the provincial system was ef- Universal 

^ , , * ^ "^ , education, and 

fected through substituting for the chief superintendent since 1870 
a ' minister of education ' with much larger powers, and zation through 
bringing all stages of pubHc education, — elementary, 
secondary, and higher schools, into much closer rela- 
tionship. The minister now has many assistants, includ- 
ing an Advisory Council of Education; and he initiates 
and directs all school legislation, decides complaints and 
disputes, sets examinations for the high, elementary, 
model, and normal schools, prescribes the courses of 
study, chooses the text-books, and appoints the inspec- 

mi • f 1 1 • • IT ^^^ subordi- 

tors. The system is further administered by subordinate nate authon- 
authorities elected in the localities, whose duties are 



394 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Unification of 
the several 
stages of edu- 
cation. 



Inspectors. 



' Separate 
schools.' 



clearly defined by law. The province is for educational 
purposes divided into counties, which are in turn divided 
into townships, and subdivided into sections and incor- 
porated cities, towns, and villages. The central and local 
administrations are wisely balanced, and while the one 
determines scholastic standards through its profes- 
sional requirements, the other establishes schools and 
appoints teachers. 

The system of elementary schools, high schools, and 
universities, is fully unified, and the work of each stage 
fits into the others even more exactly than in the ' ladder ' 
system of the United States. The training of teachers is 
cared for through the departments of Education in the 
universities, the eight provincial normal schools, and a 
model school in each county. The teachers for secondary 
institutions are prepared at the universities, the normal 
schools grant a life certificate to teach in the elementary 
schools, while the model schools afford fourteen weeks of 
training for country teachers. The buildings, equip- 
ment, courses, and instruction of the high, elementary, 
and model schools are each reported upon by inspec- 
tors of assured scholarship and experience. Since 1863 
permission has been granted to establish 'separate 
schools' for any peculiar creed or race, wherever there 
are five families requesting it. This opportunity to 
have schools of their own faith has not been embraced 
by any save the Roman Catholics. Any one paying 
toward the support of a ' separate school ' is exempt from 
taxation for the regular public schools. Special provin- 
cial inspectors report upon these schools, but in the same 
way as for the public schools. 

The System of Ecclesiastical Schools in Quebec. — 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN SYSTEMS 395 

The Ontario system may be considered typical of the 

educational administration in the various provinces of 

Canada, except Quebec. Every other province has ^ces'^sunUar to 

sought uniformity of school provision and educational Ontario. 

standards through government control, although none 

of them grant their central ofl&cial quite as much power as 

Ontario. Alberta and Saskatchewan likewise permit 

'separate schools,' and they existed in Manitoba until 

1890. But the type of control in Quebec is very different 

from that of the other provinces. There in 1845 the in Quebec 

parish was by law made the unit of school administration. 

But seven years later government inspectors were estab- but since 1859 

,.,,,.„ . . Council of 

lished, and m 1859 a central organization was completed Public in- 
with a Council of Public Instruction, This authority is 
composed of two divisions, a Roman Catholic and a 
Protestant, which sit separately and administer the 
schools of their respective creeds. The provincial super- and supenn- 
intendent of schools, appointed by the heu tenant gover- schools. 
nor, is ex officio chairman of both divisions, but he can 
vote only with the division to which he belongs by reli- 
gion. Each division makes regulations for the instruc- 
tion and tests of its own schools, and appoints inspectors School support, 
of its own faith. The proceeds from the general public 
school fund or from any educational legacies are divided 
in proportion to the Catholic and Protestant inhabitants, 
but the regular school rate may be assigned to whichever 
of the two school systems the taxpayer wishes. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READmC 

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. IX; Parker, 
Modern Elementary Education (Ginn, 191 2) , chaps. X and XI. The 
following works throw light upon various phases of the respective 



396 A student's history of education 

countries: Nohle, E., History of the German School System {Report 
of the U. S. Commissioner of Education, 1897-1898; vol. I, pp. 26- 
44) ; Paulsen, F., German Education (Scribner, 1908) ; Russell, J. E., 
German Higher Schools (Longmans, Green, 1896); Paulsen, F., 
The German Universities (Macmillan, 1895; Scribner, 1906); 
Kandel, I. L., The Training of Elementary School Teachers in Ger- 
many (Columbia University, Teachers College Contributions, No. 31, 
1910) ; Brown, J. F., The Training of Teachers for Secondary Schools 
in Germany (Macmillan, 191 1); Beard, Mary S., Ecoles maternelles 
of Paris {Great Britain, Board of Education, Special Reports on Edu- 
cational Subjects, vol. VIII, no. 8); Farrington, F. E., French 
Secondary Schools (Longmans, Green, 1910) and The Public Pri- 
mary System of France (Columbia University, Teachers College Con- 
tributions to Education, no. 7, 1906); Smith, Anna T., Education in 
France {Reports of the United States Commissioner of Education, 
1890 to 1914, see tables of contents) ; Greenough, J. C, The Evolu- 
tion of the Elementary Schools of Great Britain (Appleton, 1903); 
Montmorency, J. E. G. de. State Intervention in English Education 
(Macmillan, 1903); Sharpless, I., English Education in Elementary 
and Secondary Schools (Appleton, 1892); Smith, Anna T., Educa- 
tion in England {Monroe Cyclopcedia of Education, vol. II) ; Sandi- 
ford, P., The Training of Teachers in England and Wales (Columbia 
University, Teachers College Contributions, no. 32, 1910); Cole- 
man, H. T. J., Public Education in Upper Canada (Columbia 
University, Teachers College Contributions, no. 15, 1909); Ross, 
G. W., The School System of Ontario (Appleton, 1896); Smith, 
Anna T., Education in Canada {Monroe Cyclopedia of Education, 
vol. I). 



CHAPTER XXVI 1 

THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 

OUTLINE 

During the past two centuries a great growth has taken place in 
the natural sciences. For a long time this development affected 
practical life very little, but during the nineteenth century the 
application of science to industrial problems has resulted in a host 
of inventions. 

Because of the importance of the sciences to life, Spencer and 
others have urged the inclusion of them in the curricula of schools 
and colleges. While the content of the sciences has furnished the 
chief argument for this, many scientists have urged their value as 
formal discipline. 

Instruction in the sciences has gradually been included in 
the higher, secondary, and elementary institutions of Germany, 
France, England, and the United States. 

This marked scientific movement is allied with the psychological 
tendency in its improvement of method, and with the sociological 
in its emphasis upon human welfare. 

The Development of the Natural Sciences in Modem 
Times. — We have already (chapter XV) witnessed the 
growth of the natural sciences and the beginning of their 
introduction into the curriculum toward the close of the 
seventeenth century. This tendency was also greatly 
stimulated by Rousseau, who, we have seen (pp. 218- .. 

222), may be held to advocate the scientific, as well as achievements 

. during past 

the sociological and psychological movements. And dur- two centuries. 

397 



398 



A student's history of education 



Hutton, 
Agassiz, 
Darwin, and 
others. 



ing the past two centuries this development has become 
most rapid and extensive. The desire for scientific in- 
vestigation steadily grew throughout the eighteenth and 
viineteenth centuries until its ideals, methods, and results 
became patent in every department of human knowl- 
edge. The strongholds of ignorance, superstition, and 
prejudice were rapidly stormed and taken through new 
discoveries or new marshallings of facts already dis- 
covered. But evident as this movement has been, it is 
scarcely possible here even to mention the more impor- 
tant scientific achievements, or to outHne the broad sweep 
of progress in astronomy, geology, biology, physiology, 
chemistry, physics, and other sciences within a century. 
The Newtonian theory has been confirmed by the inves- 
tigations of Lagrange and Laplace and by the discovery 
of Neptune by mathematical reasoning from the effects 
of its gravitation. Hutton 's 'Plutonic' theory of conti- 
nents and Agassiz's hypothesis of a universal ice-age have 
been formulated; the doctrine of evolution of Darwin 
(Fig. 51) and Mendel's law of inheritance have been estab- 
lished; Liebig and others have thrown light upon the 
process of digestion and the functioning of the lungs and 
liver; atoms, molecules, and ions have been defined; Joule 
and Mayer have demonstrated the conservation of en- 
ergy; and the periodic law of chemical elements has been 
discovered by Newlands. 

The Growth of Inventions and Discoveries in the 
Nineteenth Century. — It should be noted, however, that 
the majority of these investigations were for a long time 
carried on outside the universities, and, owing to the 
almost proverbial conservatism of educational institu- 
tions, the natural sciences scarcely entered the course 



THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 399 

of study anywhere. In fact, these great discoveries at 
first seem not to have affected practical Hfe in any direc- 
tion. Huxley tells us that in the eighteenth century 
"weaving and spinning were carried on with the old ap- 
pliances; nobody could travel faster by sea or by land 
than at any previous time in the world's history, and 
King George could send a message from London to York 
no faster than King John might have done." But a 
little later, as he adds, " that growth of knowledge be- 
yond imaginable utihtarian ends, which is the condition 
precedent of its practical utility, began to produce During nine- 
some effect upon practical life." The nineteenth century sdence a^ppiied 
will, on this account, always be known for its develop- 
ment of inventions and the arts, as well as of pure science. 
During this period science rapidly grew and took the labor? trans- ° 
form of applications to the problems of labor, production, communica- 
transportation, communication, hygiene, and sanitation. and'hy°^ne.*^' 
The reaper, the sewing machine, the printing press, and 
the typewriter greatly reduced the cost of labor; the 
steamboat, locomotive, electric railway, telegraph, and 
telephone Unked all parts of the world together; anthra- 
cite, friction matches, petroleum, and electric lighting 
and heating greatly enlarged the comforts of life; and 
stethoscopes, anaesthetics, antiseptics, and antitoxines 
added wonderfully to the span of human life. 

Herbert Spencer and What Knowledge is of Most 
Worth. — Because of these practical results, the vital 
importance of a knowledge of natural phenomena to 
human welfare and social progress was more and more 
felt throughout the century. It gradually became evi- 
dent that the natural sciences were demanded by modern 
life and constituted elements of the greatest value in 



400 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Contest be- 
tween advo- 
cates of classics 
and sciences. 



Preparation 
for complete 
living as the 
purpose of 
education. 



Leading kinds 
-f. activity; 



modern culture and education. Many English and 
American writers began to maintain that an exclusive 
study of the classics did not provide a suitable prepara- 
tion for life, and that the sciences should be included in 
the curriculum. This step was bitterly opposed by con- 
servative institutions and educators. During a greater 
part of the century a contest was waged between the 
advocates of the classical monopoly and the progressives, 
who urged that the sciences should be introduced. 

A representative argument for sciences in the course of 
study is that made by Herbert Spencer (Fig. 52) in 
his essay on What Knowledge Is of Most Worth. He 
ventured to raise the whole question of the purpose of 
education. He held that "to prepare us for complete 
living is the function which education has to discharge; 
and the only rational mode of judging of any educational 
course is, to judge in what degree it discharges such func- 
tion. Our first step must obviously be to classify, in 
the order of their importance, the leading kinds of ac- 
tivity which constitute human Hfe. They may be ar- 
ranged into: I. Those activities which directly minister 
to self-preservation; 2. Those activities which, by se- 
curing the necessaries of life, indirectly minister to self- 
preservation; 3. Those activities which have for their 
end the rearing and discipHne of offspring; 4. Those 
activities which are involved in the maintenance of 
proper social and poHtical relations; 5. Those miscel- 
laneous activities which make up the leisure part of 
life, devoted to the gratification of the tastes and feel- 
ings. The ideal of education is complete preparation in 
all these divisions. But failing this ideal, the aim should 
be to maintain a due proportion between the degrees 



THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 40I 

of preparation in each, greatest where the value is great- 
est, less where the value is less, least where the value is 
least." 

Applying this test, Spencer finds that a knowledge of these! sciences 
the sciences is always most useful in life, and therefore ^^gj™?^' 
of most worth. He considers each one of the five groups 
of activities and demonstrates the need of the knowledge 
of some science or sciences to guide it rightly. An ac- 
quaintance with physiology is necessary to the mainte- 
nance of health, and so for self-preservation. Any form of 
industry or other means of indirect self-preservation will 
require some understanding of mathematics, physics, 
chemistry, biology, and sociology. To care for the phys- 
ical, intellectual, and moral training of their children, 
parents should know the general principles of physiology, 
psychology, and ethics. A man is best fitted for citizen- 
ship through a knowledge of the science of history in its 
pohtical, economic, and social aspects. And even the 
aesthetic or leisure side of Hfe depends upon physiology, 
mechanics, and psychology as a basis for art, music, oFeducatioMj 
and poetry. Hence Spencer advocates a complete change '^^"'^^'^^i^ 
from the type of training that had dominated education 
since the Renaissance and calls for a release from the 
traditional bondage to the classics. Instead of Greek 
and Latin for 'culture' and 'discipline,' and an order 
of society where the few are educated for a life of ele- 
gant leisure, he recommends the sciences and a new 
scheme of Hfe where every one shall enjoy all advantages 
in the order of their relative value. But Spencer uses 
the term 'science' rather loosely, and seeks to denote 
the social, political, and moral sciences, as well as the 
physical and biological, as being ' of most worth.' Hence 



402 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Huxley's ridi- 
cule of the 
education in 
vogue. 



he does not deserve to be severely arraigned for his ' utili- 
tarianism/ as he has been so frequently. His 'prepara- 
tion for complete living ' includes more than ' how to live 
in the material sense only,' and with him education 
should contain such material as will elevate conduct 
and make life pleasanter, nobler, and more effective. 

Advocacy of the Sciences by Huxley and Others. — 
Another great popularizer of the scientific elements in 
education, who also stressed the value of the sciences 
for 'complete Hving' and social piv^gress, was Thomas 
H. Huxley (Fig. 53). His use of Enghsh was vigorous 
and epigrammatic, and he showed great skill in bringing 
his conclusions into such simple language that the most 
unscientific persons could understand them. Especially 
in an address on A Liberal Education before a 'work- 
ingmen's college,' he has most forcefully depicted the 
value of the sciences and other modern subjects in train- 
ing for concrete hving, and ridiculed the ineffectiveness 
of the current classical education. He maintains that 
"the Hfe, the fortune, and the happiness of every one 
of us depend upon our knowing something of the phenom- 
ena of the universe and the laws of Nature. And yet 
this is what people tell to their sons : ' At the cost of from 
one to two thousand pounds of our hard-earned money, 
we devote twelve of the most precious years of your hfe 
to school. There you shall not learn one single thing of 
all those you will most want to know directly you leave 
school and enter upon the practical business of life.'" 
Instead of this, " the middle class school substitutes what 
is usually comprised under the compendious title of the 
'classics' — that is to say, the languages, the literature, 
and the history of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and 



THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 403 

the geography of so much of the world as was known to 
these two great nations of antiquity." Thus "the British 
father denies his children all the knowledge they might 
turn to account in life, not merely for the achievement of 
vulgar success, but for guidance in the great crises of 
human existence." 

Many other vigorous lecturers and writers entered 
into this reform of the curriculum. Opposition to the 
over-emphasiS' of languages, especially the classics, in 
the content of education was undertaken even earlier in 
the century by the distinguished phrenologist, George Combe. 
Combe. In his 'secular' schools and in his work on 
Education^ he emphasized instruction in the sciences 
relating to moral, rehgious, social, and political life, 
as well as those bearing upon man's physical and men- 
tal constitution. After the middle of the century a 
number of men undertook to popularize the sciences in 
America by tongue and pen. One of the most effective 
of these was Edward L. Youmans, who collected and Voumans. 
edited a set of lectures urging the claims of the va- 
rious sciences under the title of Culture Demanded by 
Modern Life (1867). He also founded the International 
Science Series (187 1) and the Popular Science Monthly 
(1872). A service for the sciences, bearing more directly 
upon the educational world, was that performed by 
Charles W. Eliot (Fig. 54), President of Harvard. EUot. 
This he accomplished largely by an extension of the elec- 
tive system and an emphasis upon science in the curric- 
ulum of school and college. In his description of 'a 
liberal education,' he argues that "the arts built upon 
chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, and geology are 
chief factors in the civilization of our time, and are 



404 A student's history of education 

growing in material and moral influence at a marvelous 
rate. They are not simply mechanical or material forces; 
they are also moral forces of great intensity." 

The Disciplinary Argument for the Sciences. — Thus, 
in general, the writers and lecturers interested in the 
scientific movement held that a knowledge of nature 
was indispensable for human welfare and that the con- 
tent of studies rather than the method was of importance 
in education. Many of them also expressed their dissent 
from the disciphnary conception of education urged by 
the classicists. Huxley, for example, parodies the usual 
Huxley paro- linguistic drill by stating: "I could get up an osteological 

dies the argu- . ., j i.* • -i. i • i li. 

ment of formal primer SO and, SO pedantic in its terminology, so alto- 
disapUne. gether distasteful to the youthful mind, as to beat the 
recent famous production of the head-master out of the 
field in all these excellences. Next, I could exercise my 
boys upon easy fossils, and bring out all their powers of 
memory and all their ingenuity in the application of my 
osteogrammatical rules to the interpretation, or con- 
struing, of those fragments." 

Yet the tradition of 'formal discipline' and the belief 
in faculties or general powers of the mind that might be 
trained by certain favored studies and afterward applied 
in any direction (see pp. i82f.) were too firmly rooted to 
be entirely upset. Even the greatest of the scientists 
seem to have been influenced by this notion and to have 
attempted occasionally a defense of their subjects on 
the basis of superiority in this direction. After Spencer 
But Spencer ^^^ made his effective argument for the sciences on the 
and others ground that their 'content' is so much more valuable 

borrow the dis- ^ 

cipiinary argu- for the activities of life, he shifts his whole point of view, 

ment of the 

classicists. and attempts to anticipate the classicists by occupying 





Fig. 51. — Charles Darwin 
(1809-1882). 



Fig. 52. — Herbert Spencer 
(1820-1903). 





Fig- 53-— Thomas H. Huxley Fig. 54.— Charles W. Eliot 

(1825-1895). (1835- ). 

.\ Group of Educational Leaders in the Scientific Movement 



THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 405 

their own ground. He admits that "besides its use for 
guidance in conduct, the acquisition of each order of 
facts has also its use as mental exercise." As evidence 
of this, he undertakes to show that science, like language, 
trains the memory, and, in addition, exercises the under- 
standing; that it is superior to language in cultivating 
judgment; that, by fostering independence, persever- 
ance, and sincerity, it furnishes a moral discipHne. A 
similar argument is made by Combe, when he maintains 
that "it is not so much the mere knowledge of the details 
of Chemistry, of Natural Philosophy, or of any other 
science that I value, as the strengthening of the intel- 
lect, which follows from these studies." So Youmans 
declares that "by far the most priceless of all things is 
mental power. Science made the basis of culture will 
accomplish this result." In fact, nearly every apologist 
for the natural sciences at some time or other has advo- 
cated these subjects from the standpoint of formal dis- 
cipline, although the impHed attitude toward the trans- 
fer of a generahzed ideal is often in harmony with modern 
psychology (seep. 184). 

Introduction of the Sciences into Educational Institu- 
tions; Germany. — Contemporaneously with the growth 
of inventions and the cogent arguments and vigorous 
campaigns of advanced thinkers during the nineteenth 
century, training in the sciences was gradually creeping 
into educational practice. While the sciences began to 
work their way into institutions of all grades early in 
the eighteenth century, it was not until about the middle 
of the nineteenth that the movement was seriously felt 
in education. Even in Germany the first attempts at 
studying nature were made outside the universities in 



4o6 



A STXJDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



German uni- 
versities 



and Hoch- 
schtUen. 



Real schools, 
gymnasiums, 



and technical 
schools. 



the 'academies of science.' We have seen (pp. 177 f.) 
that during the eighteenth century most of the Protestant 
universities had started professorships in the sciences. 
But it was not until the beginning of the second quarter 
of the nineteenth century that, in Liebig's laboratory at 
the University of Giessen, students first began to be 
taught through experiments, and it was after the mid- 
dle of the century before this investigation work had 
generally replaced the formal science instruction in 
German universities. Since then the development of 
science in the higher education of Germany has been 
phenomenal. The Technische Hochschulen (see p. 380) 
have also come to furnish instruction in all fields of ap- 
plied science. 

In German secondary instruction the realistic instruc- 
tion of the pietists was brought by Hecker (see p. 176) 
to Berlin, where he started his famous Realschule in 
1747, and before the beginning of the nineteenth cen- 
tury similar institutions had spread throughout Prussia. 
Early in the nineteenth century the course of study in 
the gymnasiums of Prussia was considerably modified, 
and, as part of the compromise, some science was intro- 
duced. The movement later spread into the secondary 
education of states in South Germany, and, while the 
total amount of science was not large, it managed to 
hold its place in the gymnasial curriculum even during 
the reaction to absolutism between 18 15 and 1848. But, 
as we have seen (p. 378), two types of real-schools were 
eventually recognized, — Realgymnasium and Oberreal- 
schule, and they at present devote approximately twice 
as much time to the physical and biological sciences as 
do the gymnasia. Technical and trade schools, with 



THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 407 

scientific and mathematical subjects as a foundation for 
the vocational work, have also appeared as a species of 
secondary education in Germany (see p. 420). The first 
of these were opened in Nuremberg in 1823, but their 
rapid increase in numbers, variety, and importance has 
taken place since the middle of the century, and their 
development in organization and method has occurred 
within the past twenty-five years. 

The scientific movement was also felt in the elemen- 
tary schools of Germany during the early part of the 
nineteenth century. Science was considerably popular- 
ized by the schools of the philanthropinists (pp. 227 f.), 
and was widely introduced into elementary educa- 
tion by the spread of Pestalozzianism in Prussia 
and the other German states (seep. 289 f.). Before the 
close of the first quarter of the century the study of 
elementary science, — natural history, physiology, and 
physics, appeared in various grades; geography and 
drawing were taught throughout the course; and geom- 
etry was included in the upper classes of the Volksschulen. Voiksschuim. 

France. — Before the Revolution in France the higher 
and secondary institutions found little place for instruc- prench colleges 
tion in science. There was a chair of experimental ^^ universi- 
physics at the College of Navarre of the University of 
Paris and at the Universities of Toulouse and Montpelier, 
and natural history was also taught at the more inde- 
pendent College of France, but, as a whole, education was 
dominated largely by humanism. However, with the es- 
tabUshment of the republic a new regime began in educa- 
tion, as in other matters, and science entered more largely 
into higher and secondary instruction. Most of the 
revolutionary proposals subordinated letters to science, 



4o8 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Lycees. 



Lower and 
higher pri- 
mary, 



and normal 
schools. 



and in 1794 the republic founded a great central normal 
school, where the famous Laplace and Lagrange for a 
short time gave instruction in science. In 1802 Napoleon 
had included in the scientific course for the lycees natural 
history, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and mineralogy, 
and a definite advance in quantity and method of the 
scientific instruction in the secondary schools was made 
in 1814. On the ground that they were injuring classical 
studies, Cousin in 1840 had the sciences curtailed, but he 
was shortly forced to restore them upon an optional basis. 
A contest between the two types of studies was carried 
on in the lycees until 1852, when a bifurcation in the 
course put the two theoretically upon the same basis. 
The scientific course, however, has never been considered 
equal in prestige to the classical, although it has con- 
stantly increased in length and difficulty. 

Some instruction in science has come to be given dur- 
ing the past forty years even in the elementary schools 
of France. In the lower primary schools the work is 
informal, and consists mostly of object lessons and first 
scientific notions. These are developed in connection 
with drawing, manual training, agriculture, and geog- 
raphy of the neighborhood and of France in general. 
Instruction becomes more formal in the ' higher primary ' 
schools, and includes regular courses in the natural and 
physical sciences and hygiene, as well as geography, 
drawing, and manual training. In the normal schools 
for primary teachers instruction in all the physical and 
biological sciences is even more thorough, and includes 
not only the facts and theories of general scientific im- 
portance, but it also emphasizes their applications to 
everyday life. For example, the flora and fauna of the 



THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 409 

neighborhood are studied in their special relation to 
agriculture. 

England. — In England, several chairs in the natural 
sciences were established at Cambridge during the 
eighteenth century. But it was almost the middle of the 
nineteenth century before the biological sciences and the 
laboratory method of instruction were introduced, and 
not until toward the close of the century did science be- 
come prominent at Cambridge and Oxford. And the Cambridge and 
most marked promotion of the scientific movement in Oxford, 
England has occurred within the past fifty years through 
the foundation of efl&cient municipal universities in municipal 
such centers as Birmingham, Manchester, London, and "■"^^I'sities, 
Liverpool (see p. 392). For many years the laboratory 
instruction was given only in institutions outside the 
universities. Higher courses in science by the new meth- 
ods were afiforded through the foundation of the Royal 
School of Mines (1851), the Royal School of Naval 
Architecture and Marine Engineering (1864), and the 
Normal School of Science (1868), which were all com- 
bined in 1890 into a single institution known as the 
Royal College of Science, and in 1907, when the Technical 
College (founded 1 881) of the City and Guilds of London 
Institute was also merged, the entire corporation became 
known as the Imperial College of Science and Tech- and imperial 
nology. An agency that was instrumental in encourag- Sdence. 
ing the advanced study of science, although it accom- 
pHshed even more for elementary and secondary schools, 
was the national Science and Art Department. This sdence and 
organization was founded in 1858 to bring under a single ^gnt^^^^"*" 
management the science, trade, and navigation schools 
already existing, and to facihtate higher instruction in 



4IO 



A student's history of education 



science, and a few years later began to offer examinations 
and to grant certificates to teach science in the elemen- 
tary schools. It was taken over by the national Board 
of Education, when that body was organized in 1899 
(see p. 389). 

In EngHsh secondary instruction the 'academies,' 
in which science first appeared (pp. 157 f.), had before 
the close of the eighteenth century greatly declined, 
and the humanistic 'pubHc' schools and secondary in- 
stitutions of a private character had as yet paid ahnost 
no attention to the sciences. In the first half of the 
nineteenth century an anti-classical campaign began, 
and, continuing with ever increasing force until the 
middle of the century, it brought about the foundation 
of numerous schools to embody the new ideals. Toward 
the close of 1848 the first 'secular' school was opened by 
Combe (see p. 403) at Edinburgh, and included in its 
curriculum a study of geography, drawing, mathe- 
matics, natural history, chemistry, natural philosophy, 
physiology, phrenology, and materials used in the arts 
and manufactures. Similar institutions were organized 
at Glasgow, Leith, London, Manchester, Birmingham, 
Newcastle, Belfast, and many other cities of the United 
Kingdom. While short-lived, these schools did much 
to promote the introduction of sciences into secondary 
education that soon followed. Shortly after the middle 
of the century Rugby, and then Winchester, introduced 
science into the regular curriculum, and by 1868, as a 
result of the governmental investigation of the endowed 
schools, which showed an almost complete absence of 
'modern side' scicnce in the curricula, all the leading secondary schools 
schools^ began to establish a 'modern side.' This course generally 



THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 41I 

included physics and natural history, as well as modern 
languages and history, but it was most reluctantly or- 
ganized by the institutions, and, while it has attained 
to great efficiency, it has never, except in a few schools, 
been accorded the same standing as the classical course. 
The Department of Science and Art also afforded much men?ot^^' 
encouragement to secondary instruction in the sciences Saenceand 
by subsidizing schools and classes in physics, chemistry, 
zoology, botany, geology, mineralogy, and subjects 
involving the applications of science. Before its absorp- 
tion into the Board of Education some ten thousand 
classes and seventy-five independent schools of second- 
ary grade received assistance from this source. 

The Department also gave aid to the study of science ^ien^ work in 
in elementary education. As early as the fifties, grants s|.|iooi°*^'^ 
were made to establish work in elementary science, art, 
and design, but the educational value was for more 
than forty years subordinated to practical applications. 
And while, after the report by a Committee of the British 
Association in 1889, much aid was furnished for the equip- 
ment of laboratories, lecture rooms, and workshops, and 
an increase in the staff of instructors, for a decade no 
subjects except the rudiments were required in the ele- 
mentary course, and such 'supplementary' subjects as 
elementary science and geography, if taught, were given 
a special subsidy. But since 1900 this scientific work has 
been made compulsory in the elementary curriculum. 

The United States. — In the colleges of the United 
States the courses show considerable evidence of science 
teaching by the eighteenth century. Harvard, Yale, Beginning in 

the collcccs 

Princeton, King's (afterward Columbia), Dartmouth, during the 
Union, and Pennsylvania had all come to offer work in ^nti^'l 



412 



A STUDENT S fflSTORY OF EDUCATION 



Development 
of sciences, — 



chemistry, 



physics. 



geology, 



astronomy, 



'natural philosophy' or 'natural history,' which terms 
might then be used to cover physics, chemistry, geology, 
astronomy, botany, and zoology. However, before the 
Revolution physics seems to have been a subordinate 
branch of mathematical instruction, even less importance 
was attached to biology, and chemistry was only oc- 
casionally taught as an obscure and unimportant phase of 
physics. Laboratories and instruments of precision did 
not yet exist. 

Since then whole fields of science have been discovered 
and defined, and others, like geology and astronomy, 
have been reclaimed from dogmatism, and science studies 
have slowly come into favor. Instruction in chemistry 
has grown up through a study of materia medica at the 
medical schools of Pennsylvania (1768), Harvard (1782), 
and Dartmouth (1798). A separate chair of chemistry 
was soon estabUshed at Princeton (1795), Columbia 
(1800), Yale (1802), Bowdoin (1805), South Carolina 
(181 1), Dickinson (181 1), and WilHams (181 2), and the 
movement continued until practically all the colleges had 
recognized it as an important branch of study. But 
while experiments were from the first performed as 
demonstrations by the instructors, it was generally not 
until almost the middle of the century that students were 
admitted at all to the laboratories. About the same time 
laboratories in physics began to be equipped with ap- 
paratus. Geology was included in the early professorship 
of chemistry at Yale, and was given a distinct chair 
upon the advent of James D.Dana about the middle of 
the century, while Amos Eaton taught it as a separate 
subject at Williams as early as 1825. Some attention 
was given to astronomy early in the century, although 



THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 413 

the instruments remained very ordinary and the methods 

authoritative and prescriptive until the opening of the 

observatories at Cincinnati (1844), Cambridge (1846), 

and Ann Arbor (1854). The biological sciences were ^"^ biology. 

even longer studied through mere observation rather 

than investigation and experiment. Until Louis Agassiz 

opened his laboratory at Harvard to students just after 

the middle of the century, the courses were meager, 

mostly theoretical and classificatory, and were given 

entirely by lecture, without field or laboratory work. 

Since then the development has been rapid. 

But the greatest impulse was given to instruction in through evolu- 
science through the publication of Darwin's Origin of trine"^^*^' 
Species (1859), and the dissemination of evolutionary 
doctrine through Asa Gray, professor of natural history 
at Harvard, and William B. Rogers, president of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The intellec- 
tual development ensuing also brought about the founda- 
tion of such new institutions as Cornell and Johns Hop- 
kins, which emphasized the teaching of science as an 
unconscious protest against the exclusively classical 
training. Special scientific and technological schools ^Ht^tTT 
likewise began to arise. The Rensselaer Polytechnic 
Institute (1825) and the Lawrence Scientific School at 
Harvard (1847) had already been opened, but now 
similar schools of science, like Sheffield at Yale (i860), 
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1862), 
sprang up in all parts of the country. In 1862 the Mor- 
rill Act of Congress appropriated lands in every state to 
promote education in agriculture, mechanic arts, and 
the natural sciences. These grants, which amounted 
at first to thirteen milHon acres, were subsequently 



414 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



extended to new states as they were admitted, and the 
endowment was increased by the annual grants of money 
that were made under later acts. From these funds and 
private benefactions, further— schools of science were 
started or old schools were strengthened in every state. 
Through the academy movement (pp. 158 ff.) sciences 
were introduced into American secondary education. 
Sometimes these subjects were extended downward from 
the colleges, but often they had as yet been barely 
touched by the colleges. As the early high schools grew 
up, they continued the attention paid to the sciences by 
the academies. The first high school to appear, that at 
Boston in 1821 (pp. 268 f.), scheduled geography in the 
first year; navigation and surveying in the second; and 
natural philosophy and astronomy in the third. A 
similar emphasis upon science appeared during the first 
half of the century in all the secondary institutions, 
whether known as academies, high schools, union schools, 
or city colleges. In all cases, however, instruction was 
given mainly through text-books, ana, while experi- 
ments were frequently used for demonstration by the 
teacher, there was no laboratory work for the students. 
Moreover, a tendency to overload the curriculum with 
sciences was much increased during the seventies by 
the demand of the legislatures in several states that 
candidates for teachers' certificates pass an examina- 
tion in several sciences. The high schools and academies 
endeavored to furnish the necessary training to prepare 
for these examinations, and until toward the end of the 
century the courses in the sciences were numerous and 
of rather superficial character. Within the last twenty 
years, however, the schools have come to limit each 



THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 415 

Student to a relatively few courses taught by thorough 
laboratory methods. 

Except for geography, which appeared in the curric- Mann°'^^°* 
ulum early in the century, the rudiments practically 
constituted the entire course of the elementary school 
until the time of Horace Mann. Largely through his 
efforts, physiology was widely introduced by the middle 
of the century. About a dozen years later the Pestaloz- ^^^ Pestaiozzi 
zian object teaching began to come in through the Oswego 
methods, although it tended to become formalized. Thus 
materials in several of the sciences came to be used, and 
the pupils were required to describe them in scientific 
terms. Toward the close of the century the sciences 
came to be presented more informally by the method 
generally known as 'nature study.' This movement 
quickly spread through the country, and has most re- 
cently appeared in the guise of agricultural instruction 
(see p. 424). Many states now require agriculture as a 
requisite for a teacher's certificate, and most normal 
schools have come to furnish a training in the subject. 

Interrelation of the Scientific with the Psychological 
and Sociological Movements. — It is evident that there 
has been a marked scientific movement in the educational 
systems of all countries during the past two hundred 
years. The sciences began to appear in the curricula 
of educational institutions in the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries, but their rapid increase, and the use 
of laboratories and the scientific method in instruction, 
dated from the middle of the nineteenth. In some re- forS dila'-" 
spects this scientific movement has been closely related ^^"^0^*^ 
to the other modern tendencies in education, — the 
psychological and the sociological. The coincidence of 



4i6 A student's history of education 

the scientific movement with the psychological on the 
question of formal discipHne has been evident (pp. 183 f.). 
The influence of the development of the sciences upon 
educational method also constitutes part of the psycho- 
logical movement. The sciences demanded entirely dif- 
ferent methods of teaching from the traditional pro- 
cedure. These innovations were worked out slowly by 
experimentation, and when they proved to be more in 
keeping with psychology, they reacted upon the teaching 
of the older subjects and came to be utilized in history, 
politics, philology, and other studies. A corresponding 
improvement in the presentation of the form, content, 
and arrangement of various subjects has taken place in 
text-books, and a radically different set of books and 
authors has been rendered necessary. 

The scientific movement has even more points in 
common with the sociological. In its opposition to the 
disciplinarians and its stress upon content rather than 
form, the scientific tendency coincides with the socio- 
logical, although the former looks rather to the natural 
., , sciences as a means of individual welfare, and the latter 

Means of .... 

human welfare, to the social and political sciences to equip the individual 
for life in social institutions and to secure the progress 
of society. But while the scientist usually states his 
argument in individual terms, because of his connection 
in time and sympathy with the individuahsm of the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the same writer 
usually, as in the case of Rousseau, Combe, Spencer, 
and Huxley, advocates the social, moral, and political 
sciences as a means of complete living. Similarly, the 
sociological movement has especial kinship with the 
economic and utilitarian aspects of the study of the 



THE SCIENTIFIC MOVEMENT AND THE CURRICULUM 417 

sciences, for professional, technical, and commercial 
institutions have been evolved because of sociological 
as well as scientific demands. Again, the use of the 
sciences in education as a means of preparing for life 
and the needs of society overlaps the modern sociological 
principle of furthering democracy. Both tendencies lead 
to the best development of all classes and to the abandon- 
ment of artificial strata in society. 



SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. X; and Great 
Educators (Macmillan, 191 2), chap. XIV; Monroe, Textbook (Mac- 
millan, 1905), chap. XII; Parker, Modern Elementary Education 
(Ginn, 191 2), pp. 331-340. Popular accounts of the growth of 
science can be found in Buckley, Arabella B., A Short History of 
Natural Science (Appleton), and Williams, H. S., Story of Nine- 
teenth Century Science (Harper) . Spencer's Education and Huxley's 
Science and Education should be read. Further arguments for the 
study of science can be found in Coulter, J. M., The Mission of 
Science in Education {Science, II, 12, pp. 281-293); Dryer, C. R., 
Science in Secondary Schools (Prize Essay in The Academy, May, 
1888, pp. 197-221); Galloway, R., Education, Scientific and Tech- 
nical (Tnibner, London, 1881); Norton, W. H., The Social Service 
of Science {Science, II, 13, pp. 644ff.); Pearson, K., Grammar of 
Science (Macmillan, 191 1), chap. I; Roberts, R. D., Science in the 
Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1901), chap. 
VII; Sedgwick, W. T., Educational Value of the Method of Science 
{Educational Review, vol. V, pp. 2435.), and especially Youmans, 
E. L., Culture Demanded by Modern Life (Appleton, 1867). 






CHAPTER XXVII 

PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 

OUTLINE 

At the present time there is great progress in industrial, com- 
mercial, and agricultural training in the schools of Europe and 
America. 

For a quarter of a century the educational systems of Europe 
have been giving attention to moral training, and of late there 
has been some discussion of the subject in the United States. 

All the great nations now provide for the training of mental 
defectives, and for some time training has been afforded those 
defective in some sense organ. 

The attempts at improved methods of teaching are witnessed 
by the study of industries in the experimental school of Dewey, 
by the formulation of a curriculum in terms of normal activities of 
other elementary schools, and by the ' didactic apparatus' and the 
devices for learning the ' three r's ' of Montessori. 

Methods of mental measurement are being devised for the ele- 
mentary school subjects by Thorndike and others, and systems of 
measurement are being utUized in administration. 

Darwin's theory of evolution has revolutionized our attitude, 
imagery, and vocabulary in education. 

There is also a great variety of other educational movements 
in all grades of education. 

Recent Educational Progress. — ^Because of the notable 
development of science and invention, which has been 
noted in the last chapter, the nineteenth century has 
often been referred to as the ' wonderful ' century. Such 
a term affords no better description of material achieve- 

418 



PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 419 

ment than of the remarkable progress that has taken 
place in education. Previous chapters have indicated 
the extent to which, through various movements, educa- 
tion has advanced and broadened in conception, but the 
near future of education will probably witness a much 
greater development. At the present time there are 
constant efforts at a modification and a reconstruction Constant 
of education in the interest of a better adjustment of construction of 
the individual to his social environment and of greatly ^ "'^''°°- 
improved conditions in society itself. It would, of 
course, be impossible to describe all of these movements 
even in the briefest manner, but some of the present day 
tendencies that appear most significant should now en- 
gage our attention. 

The Growth of Industrial Training. — The movement 
that is perhaps most widely discussed to-day is the intro- 
duction of vocational training into the systems of edu- 
cation. There is now an especial need for this type Sodai reasons 

. . f> . 1 • 1 • 1 1 • 11^°^ industrial 

of trammg. Smce the mdustnal revolution and the education, 
development of the factory system, the master no longer 
works by the side of his apprentice and instructs him, 
and the ambition of the youth can no longer be spurred 
by the hope that he may himself some day become a 
master. His experience is generally confined to some 
single process, and only a few of the operatives require 
anything more than low-grade skill. Nor, as a rule, wiU 
the employer undertake any systematic education of 
his workmen, when the mobility of labor permits of no 
guarantee that he will reap the benefit of such efforts, 
and the modern industrial plant is poorly adapted to 
supplying the necessary theoretical training for experts. 
Hence an outside agency — the school — has been called 



420 



A student's history of education 



Industrial 
training of the 
continuation 
schools in 
Germany. 



Work of Ker- 
schensteiner. 



No apprentice- 
ship in France, 
but all training 
in continuation 
schools. 



upon to assist in the solution of these new problems. To 
meet the demand for industrial education, all the prin- 
cipal states of Europe have maintained training of this 
sort for at least half a century, and the United States has 
in the twentieth century been making rapid strides in 
the same direction. 

Industrial Schools in Europe. — In Germany, where 
this training is most effective, the work has for fifty years 
been rapidly developing through the Forthildungsschulen 
(see Fig. 55). The course in these schools at first con- 
sisted largely of review work, but the rapid spread of 
elementary schools soon enabled them to devote all the 
time to technical education. Training is now afforded 
not only for the rank and file of workmen in the different 
trades, but for higher grades of workers, such as foremen 
and superintendents. Girls are likewise trained in a wide 
variety of vocations. During the last twenty-five years 
there have also been developed continuation schools to 
furnish theoretical courses in physical sciences, mathe- 
matics, bookkeeping, drawing, history, and law. In 
North Germany there is a tendency to confine the courses 
to theoretical training, and leave the practical side to the 
care of the employers, but the South German states 
generally combine theoretical and practical work, and 
develop schools adapted to the industries of the various 
localities. Through the work of Kerschensteiner, Munich 
has even included an extra class in the elementary 
schools, to bridge the gap between school Hfe and em- 
ployment. 

France goes still further, and, because of unsatisfactory 
conditions in apprenticeship, attempts to eliminate it 
altogether, and to furnish the entire industrial training 



PRESENT PAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 42 1 

through continuation schools articulating with the ele- 
mentary system. The pupils are admitted at thirteen 
to the continuation schools (see p. 383) and obtain prac- 
tice in the school workshops for three years. Wood- 
work is generally taught to the boys, but the other 
courses vary with local needs. Girls learn to make 
dresses, corsets, millinery, artificial flowers, and other 
industrial products. In England, grants were first made Eariy facmties 
to evening industrial schools and classes in 1851, but 
twenty years later regular schools of science were or- 
ganized, which had both day and evening sessions. In 
addition to these continuation schools, there have now 
been estabHshed higher elementary schools, which afford 
a four-year course in practical and theoretical science 
arranged according to local needs. 

Industrial Training in the United States. — Industrial Evening con- 
tinuation 
training first began to be offered in the United States schookin 

. 1 1 r f 1 • 1 1 United States. 

durmg the latter half of the nmeteenth century by means 
of a number of evening continuation schools. These were 
estabHshed through philanthropy in the larger cities, and 
included the Cooper Union and the Mechanics' Institute 
in New York ; the Franklin Union and the Spring Garden 
Institute in Philadelphia; the Ohio Mechanics' Institute 
in Cincinnati; and the Virginia Mechanics' Institute in 
Richmond. The pubhc schools at length followed this 
example, and of late years have organized evening classes 
in drawing, mathematics, science, and technical subjects. 
Day instruction was long delayed. It began in 1881 
with the foundation of the New York Trade School, ^^y schools. 

private 

-but at the end of twenty years there were only two 
others, — the WilHamson Free School of Mechanical ^nd public. 
Trades near Philadelphia and the Baron de Hirsch Trade 



422 



A student's history of education 



Secondary 
schools. 



'Part-time' 
schools. 



School in New York. Later the development was more 
rapid, and since 1906 several hundred day trade schools 
have been organized, mostly through public support, in 
the larger cities of the country. These schools are mostly 
for youths between sixteen and twenty-five, but 'prepara- 
tory trade schools' for younger boys have also been 
started in New York, Massachusetts, and other states. 
Higher training to equip leaders for the industries has 
also come to be furnished through endowed secondary 
schools and technical high schools in a number of cities. 
A recent variety of vocational training is the 'part-time' 
plan, by which students are given some theoretical and 
formal training in a regular high school or college, while 
they are obtaining their practical experience. This alter- 
nation of practical and theoretical training is sometimes 
carried on in a single institution, or even within a com- 
mercial estabUshment itself. 

Commercial Education in Europe and America. — But 
mercial educa- the modcm development of vocational training through- 
out the leading countries has not been confined to indus- 
trial lines. With the extension of the sphere of com- 
merce and the development of its organization that have 
taken place in the nineteenth century, it has come to 
be recognized that preparation is essential for a business 
career. Only recently, however, has this training been 
felt to be a proper function of the schools, since for many 
years it was opposed by educators as sordid and com- 
mercializing, and by business men as unpractical and 
ineffective. Both classes have now been brought to 
realize the need of mutual support, and the rapid growth 
of commercial education indicates an appreciation of 
its usefulness. 



Conditions 



PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 423 

Germany is generally admitted to lead in commercial in Germany 

many private 

education. The growth of this training has taken place continuation 
since 1887, but there is now offered under state control a 
unified and thorough preparation for any line of business. 
Besides private continuation schools, in which a course 
of three years in modern languages and elementary 
commercial studies can be obtained, there have grown 
up both public secondary schools and university courses ^"d un^verdty 
in which a thorough general education and theoretical courses, 
work in commerce, as well as a practical and technical 
training, are provided (Fig. 55). England and France but England 
have been rather indifferent to commercial education, different. 
In both countries until very recently schools have been 
few, and the number of pupils in each has been small. 
But now continuation schools, free evening courses, and 
private classes have sprung up, and in a few large cities 
commercial schools of secondary and even higher grade 
have been estabhshed. In the United States commercial ^^^l ^h^^ 
training began by the middle of the nineteenth century °^^ coUeges/ 
through private enterprise with classes in bookkeeping, 
and later with 'business colleges.' Despite the name of 
the latter, the course is narrow and is generally shaped by 
pecuniary aims. During the last two decades of the H^ hShe^^'^ 
nineteenth century high and normal schools began to 
offer commercial instruction, but until the twentieth 
century the courses were only tolerated as a necessary 
evil, and largely imitated those of the business colleges. 
Since then many cities have opened high schools of 
commerce, and university schools and colleges of com- 
merce have arisen, and even a score of years before this 
development the Wharton School of Finance and Com- 
merce was started at the University of Pennsylvania. 



courses. 



424 A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 

Agricultural Recent Emohasis upon Agricultural Training. — A 

instruction m . ., , , , r i i i • ^ • 

the schools of Similar development has of late been taking place m 
Germany. agricultural education. France and Germany offer ele- 
mentary instruction in agriculture, while the former has 
also introduced the subject into the normal schools, and 
the latter has estabhshed a secondary agricultural insd- 
tution open to students at the close of their sixth year 
Sirs'^coirses in the RealschuU. Through the feeling that the United 
educatlon^^^ °^ States must become the great agricultural nation, and 
that the traditional methods of agriculture have been 
exceedingly wasteful, this country especially has been 
emphasizing that type of vocational education. The 
land grant colleges, first endowed by act of Congress 
in 1862, have greatly stimulated interest in the subject, 
and later Congress added other sources of revenue, and 
has recently furnished appropriations for instruction in 
the teaching of agriculture and for extension work in 
agriculture. Thus the way has been prepared for the 
introduction of the subject into the high school and 
grades. There are now at least one hundred agricultural 
high schools in the United States, and agriculture is 
taught as a branch of study in several thousand high 
and elementary school systems. 
Uons'demalid- Moial Training in the Schools To-day.— But present 
traidng^' day tendencies in education have to do with more than 
the material side of civilization. There is a growing senti- 
ment in favor of moral instruction in the schools. There 
are many reasons why this need should be especially felt 
in the complex business life of to-day. When men work 
for impersonal corporations, sell products to people 
they never see, or intrust their welfare to officials whose 
names are scarcely known, one strong factor making for 



Fig- 55- — Vocational education for boys in Germany (Commercial, Indus- 
trial, and Professional) in Relation to Public School Organization. 




(Reproduced by permission from Farrington's Commercial Education in Germany.) 



PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 425 

honesty and virtue, that of personal relations, is lost. 
Moreover, as a result of the weakening of old religious 
sanctions, the new conditions in large cities, and other 
causes, moral traditions are in need of being but- 
tressed. 

The educational systems of Europe have for a quarter 
of a century given more or less attention to moral train- 
ing. In France this training has been purely secular and ^^ France 

o . secular tram- 

excluded all religious elements. But the education of ing, but in 

.111. England and 

England and Germany has always associated the teachmg Germany 
of morahty with religion. In England, the 'board' 
schools have furnished religious instruction of a non- 
sectarian character, but the religious training of the 
'voluntary' schools has occupied more time and has 
stressed the creed and denominational teaching of some 
church, usually the Church of England (see pp. 380 f.). 
The contest over rehgious teaching since the Act of 
1902 (see p. 390) caused a self-constituted commis- ^^^^^ "*"* 
sion, with Michael E. Sadler as chairman, to investigate 
the subject of moral instruction, and in 1908-1909 it 
presented a large and illuminating report. In Germany 
the moral and religious instruction in all elementary 
schools is sectarian, and Catholic and Protestant schools 
are alike supported, wherever needed, at public expense. 
During the past decade there has been considerable dis- 
cussion in the United States concerning moral educa- 
tion. In response to the demand for an investigation of 
the subject, a committee of the National Education As- ^°g^ ^ '^^j^^ 
sociation in 1908- 1909 made a report upon various phases United states. 
of moral training, and recommended special instruc- 
tion in ethics, not in the form of precepts, but through 
consideration of existing moral questions. In 191 1 the 



426 



A student's history of education 



Summary of 
the R. E. A. 



Impulse given 
by Seguin's 
'physiological' 
meUiods. 



Attempts to 
introduce in- 
tellectual 
elements. 



Schools in 
Germany, 



Religious Education Association, whose convention in 
that year was devoted to moral training, gave in its 
Journal a broad summary of the progress of moral educa- 
tion in the United States. The report reveals a wide 
difference of opinion and practice, but an evident tend- 
ency to trust other agencies than direct moral instruc- 
tion. As a rule, state legislation seems as yet to have 
failed to provide a general system of training, but has 
confined itself to specific subjects, such as instruction in 
citizenship, the effects of alcohol and narcotics, and the 
humane treatment of animals. 

The Development of Training for Mental Defectives. — 
One of the most patent evidences of the growth of the 
humane spirit in modern times is found in the universal 
attention now given to the education of mental defec- 
tives. This movement was given its greatest impulse 
through Edouard Seguin, who came to the United States 
in 1850 and developed his methods here. His general 
plan was to appeal to the mind through the senses by 
means of a training of the hand, taste and smell, and eye 
and ear. He used pictures, photographs, cards, patterns, 
figures, wax, clay, scissors, compasses, and pencils as his 
chief instruments of education. The stimulus he gave 
to the training of defectives has been epoch-making, 
and his 'physiological' methods have remained the chief 
means of education. Although there has grown up a 
tendency to introduce intellectual elements into the 
training of the feeble-minded, the advantages of such a 
procedure are doubtful. 

All the great nations now provide schools for the 
training of defectives. Germany has over one hundred 
institutions, with some twenty thousand pupils in them, 



PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 427 

although nine-tenths of them are not supported by the 
state, but are under church or private auspices. These 
schools generally stress manual education, but give 
some attention to intellectual Hnes, especially to speech 
training. There are but few schools for defectives in 

. 1 r T^ • 11- •! France, and 

France, aside from the two near Pans and the juvemle England, 
department of the insane hospital at Bicetre, but these 
institutions largely follow the physical work formulated 
by Seguin. In London there is one excellent institution 
with two thousand pupils, where manual training consti- 
tutes almost the entire course. But there are five other . . 
schools so located as to serve the various parts of Eng- 
land, in which the training is rather bookish and emphasis 
is especially laid upon number work. 

Thanks to the start given by Seguin, America has u^j'^d^lj^j^g^ 
taken up the education of defectives more fully than any 
other country. Schools for the feeble-minded now exist 
in almost all the states, and there are some thirty-five 
or forty private institutions of considerable merit. Not 
far from twenty thousand defectives are being trained, 
although this is probably only about one-tenth of the 
total number of such cases in the country. The type of 
education differs greatly according to the institution, 
ranging from almost purely manual training to a large 
proportion of the intellectual rudiments, but in all the 
work is adapted to the various grades in such a way as 
to raise them a httle in the scale of efficiency and to 
keep them as far as possible from being a burden to 
themselves and to society. Likewise, special cHnics 
and investigations, hke those of Lightner Witmer of 
the University of Pennsylvania and of H. H. Goddard 
of the Training School at Vineland (New Jersey), are 



428 



A student's history of education 



Manual 



and oral 
methods for 
the deaf. 



Schools for the 
blind in 
Europe and 
the United 
States. 



greatly adding to our knowledge of the best methods 
for training defectives. 

Education of the Deaf and Blind. — Persons defective 
in some sense organ, but otherwise up to the standard, 
have likewise for some time been receiving an education 
that will minimize the difficulty. There have been two 
chief methods for teaching the deaf. The manual or 
'silent' method of communication was invented by the 
Abbe de I'Epee in Paris during the latter part of the 
eighteenth century, and his school was adopted by the 
nation in 1791. The other method, the 'oral,' by which 
the pupil learns to communicate through reading the 
movements of the lips, was started in Germany early 
in the eighteenth century, but was not employed to any 
great extent until the middle of the next century. Most 
countries now use the oral method exclusively, or in con- 
nection with the manual system. In the United States 
practically every commonwealth now has one or more 
schools for the deaf, and since 1864 even higher educa- 
tion has been furnished by Gallaudet College at Wash- 
ington. 

The first instruction of the bhnd through raised letters 
was given toward the end of the eighteenth century by 
Abbe Haiiy at Paris. While his schools, owing to his 
lack of judgment, were failures, the idea spread rapidly. 
Early in the nineteenth century there were one or more 
schools in each of the leading countries of Europe, and 
a generation later institutions of this sort were started 
in the United States. In schools for the blind or deaf, 
industrial training has in most instances been added to 
the intellectual (see p. 300), in order to fit every indi- 
vidual to be an independent workman in some line. 



PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 429 

Even pupils, both deaf and blind, like Laura Bridgeman 
and Helen Keller, have had their minds awakened 
through the sense of touch. 

Recent Development of Educational Method ; Dewey's 
Experimental School. — Nor has the past century wit- 
nessed any cessation of the attempts at improved 
methods of teaching. Various suggestions and systems 
have been put forward and many have had an important 
effect upon school procedure. It is impossible, however, 
to discuss any except a few of the more influential and 
prominent, and these can be considered but briefly. The 
occupational work of Professor Dewey and Colonel 
Parker's scheme of concentration have marked the Colonel 

Parker's 

growth of a body of educational theory and practice that contributions. 

places the methods of to-day far in advance of anything 

previously known. The combination and modification 

of Ritter, Herbart, and Froebel worked out by Parker 

have perhaps received suflScient attention (see pp. 293, 

350, and 364), but we may at this point outline a little 

more fully the contributions made by John Dewey, who 

has probably been the leader in the reconstruction that 

has taken place in education almost since the twentieth 

century began. 

The methods of Dewey were developed in an experi- 
mental elementary school connected with the University 
of Chicago and under his supervision from 1896 to 1903. 
The school did not start with ready-made principles, but 
sought to solve three fundamental educational problems. 
It undertook to find out (i) how to bring the school into Pxirpose 
closer relation with the home and neighborhood life; 
(2) how to introduce subject-matter in history, science, 
and art that has a positive value and real significance in 



43° 



A student's history of education 



and course of 

Dewey's 

school. 



In harmony 
with Froebel, 



the child's own life; and (3) how to carry on instruction 
in reading, writing, and figuring with everyday experience 
and occupation as their background "in such a way that 
the child shall feel their necessity through their connec- 
tion with subjects which appeal to him on their own ac- 
count." The plan for meeting these needs was found 
largely in the study of industries. Since industries are 
most fundamental in the thought, ideals, and social or- 
ganization of a people, these activities must have the most 
prominent place in the course of a school. ''The school 
cannot be a preparation for social hfe except as it repro- 
duces the typical conditions of Hfe." The means used in 
furnishing this industrial activity were evolved mainly 
along the Unes of shopwork, cooking, sewing, and weav- 
ing, although many subsidiary industries were also used. 
These occupations were, of course, intended for a Uberal- 
izing, rather than a technical purpose, and considerable 
time was given to an historical study of them (Fig. 56). 
Dewey declares: "The industrial history of man is not a 
materiahstic or merely utilitarian affair. It is a matter of 
intelligence. Its record is the record of how man learned 
to think, to think to some effect, to transform the condi- 
tions of life so that Hfe itself became a different thing. 
It is an ethical record as well; the account of the con- 
ditions which men have patiently wrought out to serve 
their ends." 

It can be seen how fully this plan is in accord with the 
real principles of social cooperation and expression of 
individual activities underlying the work of Froebel; 
and "so far as these statements correctly represented 
Froebel's educational philosophy," Dewey generously 
grants that "the school should be regarded as its ex- 



PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 43 1 

ponent." But these industrial activities of the Chicago 
experimental school were not in the least suggested by 
Froebel's work, and were far more expressive of real Hfe. 
They never became as stereotyped and external as the but not as 
gifts or even as the occupations of the kindergarten have ^'^^'■^^'^^p^ • 
generally been. Dewey is insistent that this training 
shall be carried on not for the purpose of furnishing factSu_ 
or principles to be learned, but for enabling the child to 
engage in the industrial occupations in miniature. "The , 
school is not preparation for life: it is Hfe." Hence this 
training is superior to the occupations of Froebel in that 
"it maintains a balance between the intellectual and the 
practical phases of experience." Where Froebel has held 
to the construction of beautiful things in mechanical 
ways, Dewey emphasizes the ordinary activities and 
experiences of life, even though the expression of these 
be crude. The child should be "given, wherever possible, 
intellectual responsibility for selecting the materials and 
instruments that are most fit, and given an opportunity 
to think out his own model and plan of work, led to 
perceive his own errors, and find how to correct them." 
Thus the work was never "reduced to a mere routine or ^^^ work— not 
custom and its educational value lost." As a result, too, t^^g^^^^ "i^e 
it was the consensus of opinion that "while the children school, 
like, or love, to come to school, yet work, and not amuse- 
ment, has been the spirit and teaching of the school; and 
that this freedom has been granted under such conditions 
of intelligent and sympathetic oversight as to be a means 
of upbuilding and strengthening character." 

Other Experiments in Method. — Hence, while the 
Chicago school is now at an end, the experiment in educa- 
tion deveveled there is still yielding abundant fruitage. 



432 A student's history of education 

It has stimulated similar undertakings elsewhere, and 
has been the largest factor in detennining the theory and 
practice of the present day. Either as a result of Dewey's 
work or through independent thought, there has sprung 
up an important group of schools in which there is clearly 
an effort to bring boys and girls of elementary school 
age into more intimate relation to community life about 
Schools on' them. Such are the Gary (Indiana) Public Schools, 
a similar basis, t^g Francis W. Parker School of Chicago, the Elemen- 
tary School at the University of Missouri, the Pestalozzi- 
Froebel School of Berlin, the Abbotsholme School in 
Derbyshire (England), and a number of others. 
A good illustration is afforded in the school developed 
University by Junius L. Meriam at Columbia, Missouri, although 
Eiemeirtary it has not been given much pubHcity. Its function is to 
School: j^gjp cyi(ij-en do better in all those wholesome activities 

in which they normally engage. The school does not 
attend to the ' three r's ' as such, but specifically to par- 
its purpose and ticular activities of children, including (i) play, (2) ob- 
curricuium. servation, (3) handwork, and (4) stories, music, and 
art. These four 'studies,' representing real Kfe, irrespec- 
tive of the school, constitute the curriculum, and the 
'three r's' are studied only as they are needed. Their 
content, therefore, being used, as in life, in meeting real 
needs, is studied most effectively. 
Gary school ^^ experiment that has attracted widespread interest 

system: jg ^j^g^j- worked out in the Gary school system by William 

A. Wirt. While the achievement is mostly in the way 
of a remarkable organization and administration that 
have undertaken to make available "all of the educa- 
tional opportunities of the city all of the time for all of 
the people," the teaching has to some extent been carried 



PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 433 

on SO as to reveal to the pupils "that what they are doing 
is worth while." The school plant includes a playground, 'ts plant and 
garden, workshop, social center, Hbrary, and traditional 
school, and it has been shown that these agencies, when 
properly organized, "secure the same attitude of mind 
toward the reading, writing, and arithmetic that the 
child normally has for play." All the other schools that 
have been mentioned above make similar attempts to 
enable the children to get into closer touch with their 
environment. While each of them approaches the 
problems of elementary training from a different angle, 
they are all in harmony with the spirit of Dewey and 
present day theory. 

The Montessori Method. — But probably the most 
spectacular development in educational procedure is 
that originating with Maria Montessori at Rome. Yet 
the Montessori method, except for some elements adapted 
from Seguin (see p. 426), is largely a combination of 
several of the concepts found in Rousseau, Pestalozzi, ' 
and Froebel, and fails to grasp the larger vision of educa- 
tion that appears in present-day theory, such as Dewey's. * 
Like Rousseau and Froebel, Montessori holds funda- 
mentally to the rightness of child nature and conse- 
quently to the hberty of the pupil, but she does not, like pupii[^^ ° ^ ^ 
Dewey, reahze that education is itself life and that the 
activities of real life should be utilized in training^;, More- 
over, the sense training, which Montessori lierself con- 
siders the most distinctive feature of her system, is 
neither original nor psychologically sound. Montessori 
began as a teacher of defectives, and her ' didactic ap- ap^ratus. 
paratus' and methods are largely borrowed from Seguin. 
Exercises of this sort are of great value in training defec- 



434 A student's history of education 

lives, but the assumption of their usefulness in the edu- 
cation of normal children is more doubtful. They are 
intended to train the senses to general powers and dis- 
criminations, and seem to be defended simply upon 
the basis of faculty psychology and the outworn theory 
of 'formal discipline' (see p. 182 f.). 

Writing, The feature of the Montessori method, however, that 

has attracted most attention is its apparent success with 
the formal elementary studies, especially the facility, 
enthusiasm, and speed with which it has enabled the 
pupils to learn to write. Montessori has carefully ana- 
lyzed the process of writing and devised three exercises 
by which this art is unconsciously learned by three or 
four year old children in Italy. If this training can be 

reading, appHcd to unphonetic languages, Hke the English, it 

may possibly be regarded as a contribution. It is evi- 
dent, however, that Montessori lays too much stress 
upon the acquisition of the formal studies and starts 
them at too early an age. In this she fails to appreciate 
Froebel's great contribution of a school without books, 
and certainly does not realize, with Dewey, that the 
main purpose of education is to give a child some control 
of his social environment and that for this there are 
activities of more importance to child life than the school 
arts. Within a few years it will probably be difficult to 
understand the furore that has been created by the Mon- 
tessori methods. 
The Statistical Method and Mental Measurements 

Technique in Education. — One of the most significant of the present 

of the physical , . . . . 

sciences day movements is the appHcation, especially in the 

education. United States, of scientific, statistical methods to prob- 
lems of education. Statistics have long been used. 



Vv. 



PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 435 

though often without clearness or accuracy, in reports 
of school administration, but it remained for this cen- 
tury to apply to the various phases of education the 
same general technique and approximately the same 
precision as that long demanded by the physical and 
biological sciences. Quantitative, unambiguous state- 
ments are now sought and secured not only for the 
phenomena of attendance, retardation, expenditures, and 
the like, but also for the relative and absolute amounts of 
knowledge. As a consequence, emphasis has been placed 
upon the results of education rather than upon the 
declaration of intentions. 

Probably the first scholar to apply the scientific 
principles of statistics to education was Edward L. 
Thorndike of Columbia University. In his Educational Thoradike's 

•' advocacy or a 

Psychology he illustrates how a quantitative description quantitative 

, . . . . description and 

of individual differences and of the factors that condi- of scales, 
tion them is necessary to throw real Hght upon educa- application 
tional theory and practice, and in his Mental and Social ment in 
Measurements he presents the details of the method. ^'^ °° subjects. 
Subsequently he maintained, in the face of much op- 
position, that scales, as objective and as impersonal 
as possible, should and could be devised for measuring 
variations in ability and changes that take place as a 
result of natural growth and instruction. Such scales, 
beginning at an ascertained zero and progressing by reg- 
ular steps to a point near perfection, are, because of the 
complexity of their elements, difficult to construct, but 
they have been set forth more or less tentatively by 
various investigators for the measurement of achievement 
in handwriting (Fig. 57), arithmetic, English composi- 
tion, spelling, drawing, freehand lettering, and read- 



436 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Measurement 
of the 
quantitative 
significance 
of factors in 
method. 



ing respectively. Other scales to measure ability in 
the several high school subjects may be expected 
soon. 

Studies are also being made in several universities 
to determine the relative importance of the numerous 
factors in methods of teaching. This is done by con- 
ducting experiments with hundreds or thousands of 
children to find out by the most accurate measurement 
yet devised the amount of progress in learning that 
is wholly due to the presence of some one factor of 
method in the technique of class-room exercises. Educa- 
tional psychology has revealed the qualitative signifi- 
cance of many of the single elements in the very com- 
plex procedure that we have called a 'method of teach- 
ing,' and this new type of research aims to determine 
the quantitative significance of each of these several 
elements of method as factors in the production of 
abilities. A. Duncan Yocum of the University of Penn- 
sylvania has formulated a considerable number of tests, 
and, by preliminary experimentation, has determined 
the conditions under which they may with a high degree 
of accuracy be given to groups of students engaged in 
actual school work under ordinary class-room conditions. 
His students have made a number of tentative, but 
suggestive studies, which have not yet been published. 
Milo B. Hillegas of Columbia University and others 
are engaged on certain aspects of this general type of 
research. There is reason, therefore, to beheve that we 
may sometime be able to measure with as much accuracy 
the efl&ciency of well-defined educational processes' as 
we are now able to measure educational products. If 
this can be attained, the technique of class-room teach- 




Fig. 56. — Indian house constructed in Dewej-'s experimental school by children 
between seven and eight years of age, while studying the development of 
primitive life. 

(Reproduced from the Elementary School Record by permission of the University of Chicago Press.) 



Fig. 57. — Specimen No. 13 taken from the 'Thorndike Writing Scale.' This 
specimen constitutes the approximate quality of handwriting that may 
reasonably be expected of pupils in the se\enth or eighth grade. In the 
complete scale the specimens arc numbered from 4 to 18. 



PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 437 

ing and of educational supervision will begin to rest on a 
really scientific basis. 

Moreover, by the use of the improved statistical 
method and of scales, studies of greatly increased value 
have been made of fatigue, retardation, elimination, 
and of other social and mental phenomena of individual and social 
children. And in 191 1, with the reports of Paul jj ™^suremen s, 
Hanus of Harvard University and Ernest C. Moore of 
Yale University upon the school systems of Montclair 
and East Orange, New Jersey, there began to be insti- 
tuted those measurements and consequent criticisms and 'ed- 

^ ^ ucational 

of whole school systems, known as 'educational surveys.' surveys.' 
These scientific reports have been extended to the ed- 
ucational work of a large number of cities and states 
throughout the Union. They are intended to enable 
school officers and patrons to comprehend with more 
definiteness the absolute, as well as the relative, achieve- 
ments of their children. 

Education and the Theory of Evolution. — A most to^rd inteUi- 
characteristic influence in education to-day has come ^^^'^^' 
through the theory of evolution of Darwin (Fig. 51). 
This fruitful hypothesis came to be generally accepted 
during the last quarter of the nineteenth century as the 
guiding principle of education, and has constantly in- 
creased the illumination it has shed upon the educational 
process. It has given an entirely new meaning to educa- 
tion, and has greatly modified the course of study and 
revolutionized the method of approaching educational 
problems. It has wrought very much the same changes 
in the treatment of intelligence that it did in the biologi- Studies of men- 

, . _ . . , , J tal develop- 

cal sciences. Consciousness is no longer regarded as a ment in the 
fLxed set of entities, but as a developmental process. In- dividual. 



438 A student's history of education 

stead of classifying and cataloging mental processes in 
fixed groups, efforts are made to study their growth from 
the standpoint both of the race and of the individual. 
Studies of mental development in the race, begun by Dar- 
win's Descent of Man, which recognized 'sexual' and 
'social selection,' as well as 'natural selection,' have been 
continued by numerous investigators, and equally ex- 
tensive researches have also been latterly made in genetic 
psychology, child study, mental development, and adoles- 
cence. Both observation and experimentation have 
been introduced into the study of mental processes. 
Even more revolutionary than this actual increase in 
knowledge, however, is the change that has taken place 

Change in . * ' . .' 1 . • , r j 

imagery and m the couccption, unagcry, and termmology oi educa- 
tion. Writers upon education constantly employ the 
language of evolution. Educational discussions are now 
filled with such terms as 'variation,' 'selection,' 'adjust- 
ment,' and 'adaptation,' and such concepts dominate 
all educational thinking. If educational leaders of half 
a century ago could be present to-day at a gathering of 
educational thinkers, they would find themselves listen- 
ing to what would seem to them almost a foreign lan- 
guage. 

Enlarging Conceptions of the Function of Education. — 
Such are a few of the chief tendencies and advances that 
are being made in education to-day. There is also a 
great variety of other educational movements, almost 
too numerous to be mentioned. In the organization and 
administration of the pubhc schools there is a decided 
tendency toward centralization in educational activities. 

Centralization; corresponding to the centrahzation in industrial and 
political affairs. The United States Bureau of Educa- 



PRESENT DAY TENDENCIES IN EDUCATION 439 

tion and the various State Departments of Public In- 
struction have had their functions much enlarged and 
their activities greatly increased. There are also such 
matters as the new procedure in school hygiene, arising gig°°? ^^' 
from the modern attitude toward the prevention of 
disease; new health regulations, as a result of having so 
many children housed in the same buildings; medical 
inspection, open-air schools, and better nourishment; and 
new tendencies in school architecture. Likewise we find ^'^^°°^ ^'■<^'^- 

lecture; 

progressive legislation on compulsory school attendance; 

more extensive training of teachers; a rapid recognition 

of education as a profession; the organization of various professionali- 

types of teachers' associations; and the development of teacUng. 

educational journaUsm. Secondary education is also 

being greatly extended and largely reorganized. 'Junior Reorganiza- 

1.1 11* !•• ji 1 tji 1 tion of second- 

high schools, combmmg the upper grades of the elemen- ary and higher 

tary school with the lower grades of the secondary school, ^ ^'^ '°°' 
and thus bridging the gap, are being widely introduced 
into American cities, and a variety of propositions 
for a six-year course are being seriously entertained. 
In connection with higher education there are such 
new tendencies as university extension, correspondence 
courses, summer sessions, university interest in the prac- 
tical problems of the people, the correlation of the first 
two years of college with the secondary school, more 
flexible entrance requirements, an increasing number of 
fields of professional work, and, above all, the profes- 
sional training of teachers through Departments of Edu- 
cation, Teachers Colleges, and Schools of Education. 
With this is connected the scientific study of Education, 
both in graduate courses and independent investigations. 
Similar efforts to secure economy, guard health, im- 



440 A student's history of education 

other progres- provc method, and cause education to serve democratic 
sive tendenaes. [^qq\^ ^j-g everywhere apparent. Educational theory and 
practice are in a constant flux, and have entered upon a 
most distinctive epoch of experimentation, change, and 
improvement. While such a situation is not without its 
perils, and each proposal should be carefully scrutinized 
before acceptance, the present tendencies are in the 
main a sign of progress and Kfe. 

^ 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. XI; Monroe, 
Textbook (Macmillan, 1905), chaps. XIII-XIV. For the special 
tendencies mentioned, the following works may be consulted: 
Cooley, E. G., Vocational Education in Europe (Chicago Commer- 
cial Club, 191 2) ; Hanus, P. H., Beginnings in Industrial Education 
(Houghton, Mifflin, 1908); Haskins, C. W., Business Education 
and Accounting (Harper, 1904); Adler, F., Moral Instruction of 
Children (Appleton, 1895); Palmer, G. H., Ethical and Moral 
Instruction in Schools (Houghton, Mifflin, 1909); Goddard, H. H., 
Education of Defectives {Monroe'' s Cyclopcedia of Education); 
Bell, A. G., Deaf Mute Instruction in Relation to the Work of the 
Public Schools; Armitage, T., Education and Employment of 
the Blind (Harrison & Sons, London, 1886); Dewey, J., The 
School and Society (University of Chicago Press, 1899), and Ele- 
mentary School Record (University of Chicago Press, 1900) ; Mon- 
tessori, Maria, The Montessori Method (Translated by Anne E. 
George, Stokes Co., New York, 1912); Kilpatrick, W. H., The 
Montessori Method Examined (Houghton, Mifflin, 1914); Ayres, 
L. P., Measuring Educational Processes through Educational Re- 
sults (School Review, May, 191 2); Strayer, G. D., Standards and 
Tests for Measuring the Efficiency of Schools (Report of the Com- 
mittee of the National Council of Education in the United States 
Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1913, No. 13); Thorndike, E. L., 
The Measurement of Educational Products {School Review, May, 
1912). 



I 



CHAPTER XXVIII 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 



OUTLINE 



Evolution in education may be interpreted from the standpoint 
of the development of individualism. Individualism was first 
fully recognized in the teachings of Christ, but was repressed dur- 
ing the Middle Ages. While it reappeared during the Renais- 
sance, Reformation, and other movements, it soon lapsed, but a 
complete break from tradition occurred with Rousseau in the 
eighteenth century. 

For a time individualism dominated, but education since then 
has endeavored to afford latitude to the individual without losing 
sight of the welfare of society. 

The Development of Individualism. — The discussion 
of present day tendencies that has just been given, to- 
gether with the account of educational evolution in the 
preceding chapters, serves to show how far modern times 
have progressed in the ideals and practice of education. 
This may perhaps be best appreciated from the stand- 
point of the development of individualism. To follow 
such an interpretation back to the beginning of the his- 
tory of education, it may be stated that during the day 
of primitive man no real distinction was made between f^°F.J^ ,9^,. 

'^ individualistic 

society and the individual, and practically all advance- tendencies 

during the days 

ment was impossible, for no one looked much beyond of primitive 
the present. With the appearance of the transitional 
period in the Oriental countries, the individual had begun nations, 

441 



442 



A STUDENT S HISTORY OF EDUCATION 



Jewish, 

Athenian, and 
Roman civili- 
zations. 



Christian de- 
velopment. 



and the Middle 
Ages; 



the Renais- 
sance, 



the Reforma- 
tion, 



to emerge, but was kept in constant subjection to the 
social whole, for man was quite enslaved to the past. 
As the Jewish, Athenian, and Roman civilizations de- 
veloped, the beginnings of individuahsm were for the 
first time clearly revealed, and some regard was had 
for the future. Then, through the teachings of Christ, 
there came to be a larger recognition of the principle of 
individualism and the brotherhood of man. Owing to 
a necessity for spreading these enlarged ideals among a 
barbarous horde of peoples, individuahsm was repressed, 
and throughout the Middle Ages the keynote was sub- 
mission to authority and preparation for the hfe to come. 
The cultural products of Greece and Rome largely dis- 
appeared, and all civilization became restricted fixed, 
and formal. 

But the human spirit could not be forever held in 
bondage, and, after almost a millennium of repression 
and uniformity, various factors that had accumulated 
within the Middle Ages produced an intellectual awaken- 
ing that we know as the 'Renaissance.' Its vitahty 
lasted during the fifteenth century in Italy and to the 
close of the sixteenth in the Northern countries, but by 
the dawn of the seventeenth century it had everywhere 
degenerated into a dry and mechanical study of the clas- 
sics. This constituted a formahsm almost as dense as 
that it had superseded, except that linguistic and hterary 
studies had replaced dialectic and theology. A Uttle later 
than the spread of the Renaissance, though overlapping 
it somewhat, came the alHed movement of the ' Reforma- 
tion.' This grew in part out of the disposition of the 
Northern Renaissance to turn to social and moral ac- 
count the revived intelligence and learning. Yet here 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 443 

also the revival failed in its mission, and the tendency to 

rely upon reason rather than dogma hardened into 

formalism and a distrust of individualism. Again, in 

the seventeenth century, apparently as an outgrowth of 

the same forces, intellectual activity took the form of a 

search for 'real things.' The movement that culminated 

in 'sense realism' appeared, but this small and crude and realism; 

beginning of the modern scientific tendency was for some 

decades yet held within limits. Associated with this 

reahstic tendency, on the religious and poUtical sides 

also appeared a quickening in such forms as ' Puritanism ' 

and 'Pietism,' which likewise degenerated eventually into tanism and 

, , . . , , . Pietism; 

a fanaticism and hypocrisy. 
The Harmonization of the Individual and Society. — 

Thus the way was opened for the complete break with |°^ ^e"de^" 
tradition and authority that occurred in the eight- stmctive 

•' ^ ^ ° tendency. 

eenth century. This tendency, while in France at 
least most destructive and costly, was the inevitable 
result of the unwilKngness to reshape society and educa- 
tion in accordance with changing ideals and conditions. 
Hence Rousseau undertook to shatter all educational 
traditions. But his recommendation of isolated educa- 
tion, so palpable in its fallacies, prepared the ground for 
the numerous social, scientific, and psychological tenden- 
cies (see pp. 218-222) that were destined to spring up 
in modern education and for the consequent improve- 
ment in the aim, organization, content, and method of 
education. Of course modern education has advanced in- 
finitely beyond anything impUed by Rousseau or even 
the later reformers of the past century, but it is out of 
his attempts at destruction that has grown this nobler ' 
structure. For a time individuaUsm triumphed and 



444 A student's history of education 

ground authority under its heel, but when this extremity 
had been passed, the problem became how to harmonize 
the individual with society, and to develop personality 
progressively in keeping with its environment. Thus 
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have put forth 
conscious efforts to justify the eighteenth and to bring 
out and develop the positions barely hinted at in its 

The present ^ '■ . . . , , 

tendencies in ^negations. It is not alonc the mdividual as such that 
seemtohar- has been of interest in the modern period, but more and 
dividual more the individual in relation to the social whole to 

tEofsodety. which he belongs, as only in this way can the value of 
his activities be estimated. 

This is revealed in the works of those who followed 

Rousseau, and especially in the attempts of recent 

, . educational philosophers to frame a definition of educa- 

Recent defini- ^ ... . ~ . . 

tions of educa- tion that shall recognize the miportance of anordmg 
latitude to the individual without losing sight of the 
^^ welfare of the social environment in connection with 
which his efforts are to function. Thus Butler, though 
recognizing the individual factor, especially stresses 
the social by declaring education to be "the gradual 
adjustment of the individual to the spiritual possessions 
of the race." Then he further declares: "When we hear 
it sometimes said, 'All education must start from the 
child,' we must add, 'Yes, and lead into human civiliza- 
tion;' and when it is said on the other hand that 'all 
education must start from a traditional past,' we must 
add, 'Yes, and be adapted to the child.'" And the 
balance between the two factors of the individual 
and society is even more explicitly preserved in Dewey's 
statement "that the psychological and social sides are 
organically related, and that education cannot be re- 



RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT 445 

garded as a compromise between the two, or a super- 
imposition of one upon the other." In the same way 
Bagley has made 'social efficiency' the main aim in 
educating the individual to-day, and both elements are 
carefully considered by all modern writers in discussing 
educational values. Thus the central problem in educa- 
tion of the twentieth and succeeding centuries is to be 
a constant reorganization of the curriculum and methods uona1*^probiem 
of teaching, and this reconstruction must be such as to °^ ^^^ future, 
harmonize a due regard for the progressive variations of 
the individual with the welfare of the conservative in- 
stitutions of society. It must include a continual effort 
to hand on the intellectual possessions of the race, but 
also to stimulate all individuals to add some modification 
or new element to the product. In this way there may 
develop unending possibihties for both the individual 
and society. 

SUPPLEMENTARY READING 

Graves, F. P., History of Education before the Middle Ages (Mac- 
millan, 1909), chap. XII; History of Educatiofi during the Transi- 
tion (Macmillan, 1910), chap. XXIII; History of Education in 
Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. XII; Monroe, P., Text- 
book in the History of Education (Macmillan, 1905), chap. X. 



/ 



INDEX 



Abelard, 70, 76. 

Academy, in Germany, 158; in 
England, 159, 177, 4io;_ of 
Franklin, 196; Lancasterian, 
242; in South, 258; in New 
York, 260; in Massachusetts, 
268; in United States, 274, 

331, 414- 
Adventure schools, 93. 
Agassiz, 398, 413. 
Agricola, 112. 

Agricultural training, 295 5., 424. 
Alcotts, The, 293. 
Alcuin, 61 ff. 
Alexandria, 29, 30, 46. 
Alsted, 171. 
American Annals of Education, 

305. 
American Journal of Education 

(Russell) 304, (Barnard) 

316 ff. 
American Sunday School Union, 

238. 
Andover Theological Seminary, 

299. 
Anselm, 70. 
Antioch, 46. 
Apologists, 45. 
Apostles' Creed, 48. 
Apperception, 338, 341. 
Aquinas, 71 f. 
Archimedes, 30. 
Aristophanes, 19. 
Aristotle, 19, 24 ff., 27, 45, 58, 

70 f., 165, 182. 
Ascham, 117. 
Assyria, 5. 
Athens, 14 ff. 
Atrium, 170. 
Averroes, 67. 
Avicenna, 66, 79. 

Babylonia, 5. 



Bacon, Francis, 23, 164 f., 166, 

171, 174, 206. 
Bacon, Roger, 163. 
Bagley, W. C, 445- 
Barnard, 309, 312 ff. 
Basedow, 220, 223 ff., 231. 
Bateus, 169. 
Bell, Andrew, 239 f. 
Benedict, St., 55. 
Bentham, 387. 
Berkeley, 192. 
Blackstone, 387. 
Blankenburg, 354. 
Blow, Susan E., 366 f. 
Board schools, 241, 388 ff., 425. 
Boccaccio, 104. 
Bolte, 366. 
Boethius, 57 f. 
Bonnal, 279. 
Boyle, 163. 
Brathwaite, 156. 
Bray, Thomas, 232. 
Brinsley, 119'. 

British and Foreign Society, 239 f. 
Brooks, Charles, 293. 
Brothers of Sincerity, 66. 
Brothers of the Christian Schools, 

140. 
Brougham, 387. 
Bruni, 105. 

Buchanan, James, 245. 
Budsus, no. 
Bugenhagen, 128, 145. 
Biilow, Baroness von, 354. 
Burgdorf, 281 f. 
Burgher schools, 93 f. 
Burro wes, T. H., 323. 
Butler, N. M., 444. 

Caesarea, 46. 
Calvin, 130, 193, 197. 
Cambridge, 117, 149, 177, 392. 
Campe, 225, 228. 



447 



448 



INDEX 



Capella, Martianus, 57. 

Carlisle, 299. 

Carpenter, Mary, 299. 

Carter, J. G., 305, 309. 

Cassiodorus, 57. 

Castes, 5 ff. 

Castiglione, 156. 

Catechetical schools, 46. 

Catechumenal schools, 43 f. 

Cathedral schools, 46 f., 54, 131. 

Catholepistemiad, 273. 

Chantry schools, 94 f., 132. 

Charity schools, 231 ff. 

Charlemagne, 61 ff. 

Charles VIII, 1 10. 

Chavannes, 291, 292. 

Cheke, 117. 

China, 5. 

Chivalry, 83 ff. 

Christianity, 29, 42 f. 

Chrysoloras, 104. 

Cicero, 58, 108, 116, 151. 

Circulating schools, 234. 

Clement of Alexandria, 46. 

Clinton, De Witt, 260. 

Cockerton Judgment, 391. 

Colburn, Warren, 293. 

Colet, 93, 117 f. 

College of Clermont, 137. 

College of France, in, 385. 

College of Guyenne, iir. 

College of William and Mary, 192. 

Combe, 403, 405, 410, 416. 

Comenius, 167, 168 ff., 224, 353. 

Commercial education, 422 f. 

Communal colleges, 384. 

Concentration, 340, 345 f., 350, 
429. 

Condillac, 205. 

Conduct of the Understanding, 180. 

Connecticut Common School Jour- 
nal, 313. 

Continuation school, 298, 374, 377, 
383, 420. 

Copernicus, 163. 

Corderius, in, 130. 

Cordova, 66. 

Corpus Juris Civilis, 76, 79. 

Correlation, 341, 344, 350. 

Council of Whitby, 56. 

Court schools, 105 ff. 

Cousin, 291 f., 408. 



Creativeness, 356 ff. 

Culture epochs, 341, 344, 346. 

Cygnaeus, 363. 

D'Alembert, 205. 

Dame schools, 266. 

Dana, James D., 412. 

Darwin, 398, 413, 437 f. 

Decree of Gratian, 76, 79. 

Defectives, 300, 426 ff. 

De Garmo, Charles, 348, 351. 

Delayed maturing, 221. 

Delinquents, 142, 300. 

Descartes, 138. 

Dewey, John, 364, 429 ff., 444. 

Dialectic, 20, 58, 71, 76, 127. 

Didascaleum, 14, 18, 21. 

Diderot, 205. 

Diophantus, 30. 

Discipline, Locke's, 180 flf. 

Districts, 266 f. 

Divided schools, 267. 

Dock, Christopher, 195. 

Donatus, 58. 

Double translation, 117. 

Duns Scotus, 71. 

Eaton, Amos, 412. 

£coles matemelles, 383. 

Edessa, 46. 

Edward VI, 132. 

Edwards, Ninian W., 325. 

Egypt, 5- 

Eisleben, 128, 145. 

Elementarwerk, 224. 

Elementary education, with Hin- 
dus, 7; with Jews, 9; in 
Sparta, 13; in Athens, 14; 
in Rome, 33, 36 f.; monastic, 
56; with Charlemagne, 62; 
humanistic, 105 ff., 113 f.; 
Sturm, lis; Zwingli, 129; 
Jesuit, 134; Port Royal, 139 f.; 
Reformation, 144 ff.; Inno- 
vators, 156; Comenius, 171; 
German realists, 175; colonial 
Virginia, 191; colonial New 
York, 194; colonial Pennsyl- 
vania, 19s; colonial Massa- 
chusetts, 197; England, 231; 
244 ff., 387 ff., 409; S. P. G., 
234; monitorial, 240; France, 



INDEX 



449 



243, 381, 408; United States, 
246, 415; New York, 258 f.; 
Herbartian, 347; Prussia, 377; 
Canada,3Q2 ff.; Germany,407. 
Hot, Charles W., 403. 
lyot, 156. 
mile, 208 S. 
ncyclopedists, 204 ff. 
pee, Abb6 de 1', 428. 
picureans, 28, 46. 
piscopal schools, 46 f. 
asmus, 113, 117, 125. 
atosthenes, 30. 
igena, 64. 

jy concerning the Human Un- 
derstanding, 180. 
Euclid, 30, 58. 
Evening Hour of a Hermit, 279. 

Faculty psychology, 27, 182 ff., 

222, 434. 
Falloux, 382. 
Father's Journal, 278. 
Felbiger, 374. 
Fellenberg, 219, 295 ff. 
Feudalism, 83 f., 90. 
Fichte, 290, 351. 
Field school, 253. 
Formal discipline, 23, 182 ff., 404, 

434- 
Forster, W. E., 388. 
Fortblldungsschulen, 298, 377,420. 
Francis I, 110. 
Francke, 175 f. 
Francke Institutions, 346. 
Frankland, 158. 
Franklin, Benjamin, 159, 261. 
Frederick Barbarossa, 76. 
Frederick the Great, 373. 
Frederick William I, 373. 
Frederick William III, 290, 375. 
Frederick II, 67, 75. 
Free School Society, 260. 
French Revolution, 204. 
■ k, 346. 
bel, 168, 17s, 219, 243, 334, 

351 ff., 368, 43of- 
oebel Union, 365. 
Jda, 63. 

"en, 79, 164. 
lalileo, 163. 



Galloway, S., 325. 

Gild schools, 92 f., 132. 

Gifts, 354, 359 f. 

Gnosticism, 30, 45. 

Goddard, H. H., 427. 

Grammar schools, Rome, 36 f.; 
cathedral, 47; monastic, 57; 
Charlemagne, 61; chantry, 
94; England, 118 f.; America, 
120; New Amsterdam, 194; 
Massachusetts, 197; Virginia, 
253; South, 258; United 
States, 274, 331. 

Granada, 66. 

Gratian, 76, 79. 

Gravel Lane School, 234. 

Gray, Asa, 413. 

Great Didactic, 169, 170 ff., 

175- 

Griscom, 242, 292, 305. 

Grocyn, 117. 

Gruner, 352. 

Guericke, 163. 

Guizot, 382. 

Guyot, 293. 

Gymnasium, Athens, 15, 17, 21; 
Melanchthon, 114; Sturm, 
115 f., 128, 157, 176; Prus- 
sian, 378, 406. 

Hall, Samuel R., 304. 

Hampton, 299. 

Hanus, P. H., 437. 

Harvard, 149, 177, 19S. 

Harvey, 164 f., 206. 

Haiiy, Abb6, 428. 

Hawley, Gideon, 259. 

Hecker, 176, 373, 378. 

Hellenistic philosophy, 29. 

Henry VIII, 131. 

Herbart, 168, 175, 219, 243, 334 ff., 

363, 368. 
Herbart Society, 348, 351. 
Hieronymians, 112 ff. 
High school, 242, 269, 306, 311, 

33h 414- 
Hillegas, M. B., 436. 
Hippocrates, 79. 
Hofwyl, 295 ff. 
Home and Colonial School Society, 

246. 
Hopkins, Edward, 120. 



45° 



INDEX 



How Gertrude Teaches Her Chil- 
dren, 282, 286. 
Humanistic education, 102 fif., 164. 
Hume, 335. 
Button, 398. 
Huxley, 220, 399, 402, 404, 416. 

India, 5 ff. 

Induction, 165, 173 f. 

Industrial education, of gilds, 
91 f.; La Salle, 141; Virginia, 
191, 193; Massachusetts, 197; 
Philanthropinum, 229; moni- 
torial, 240; charity, 249; 
Pestalozzi, 278 ff.; Fellenberg, 
295 ff.; Europe, 298 ff.; pres- 
ent status, 419 ff. 

Infant School Society, 246 f. 

Infant schools, 243 ff. 

Initiatory ceremonies, 5. 

Innovators, 156. 

Imerius, 76. 

Isocrates, 28. 

Jansenists, 138 ff. 

Janua Linguarum, 169, 174. 

Jarrow, 56. 

Jefferson, 253, 270. 

Jesuits, 133 ff. 

Jews, 9 f. 

Joule, 398. 

Judaism, 29. 

JuUien, General, 291 f. 

Justinian, 54, 76. 

Kant, 227. 
Keilhau, 353. 
Kepler, 163, 165. 
Kerschensteiner, 420. 
Kindergarten, 354, 358 ff., 364 ff. 
Kitchen school, 267. 
Krusi, 289. 

Lancaster, Joseph, 239 ff. 

Lagrange, 398, 408. 

Lange, Karl, 346. 

Langethal, 352. 

Laplace, 398, 408. 

La Salle, 140. 

Latin schools. See Grammar 

schools. 
Laws, The, 23. 



Leonard and Gertrude, 278 f. 

Leopold of Dessau, 225. 

Lewis, S., 325. 

Liberal studies, 23, 56 f., 122. 

Libraries, 307. 

Liebig, 398, 406. 

Liebenstein, 354. 

Lily, 113, 118. 

Linacre, 117. 

Locke, 154 ff., 158, 179, 206, 213, 

335- 
Louis XII, no. 
Louis XIV, 140. 
Louis XV, 207. 
Louis Philippe, 382. 
Loyola, 132 f. 
Ludus, 36 f. 
Luther, 114, 125 ff. 
Lycees, 384, 408. 

McClure, William, 292. 
McMurry, C. A., 348. 
McMurry, F. M., 348, 351. 
Malpighi, 164. 

Mann, 293, 304, 306 ff., 415. 
Manual training, in United States, 

298 f.; Cygnaeus, 363; in 

France, 383. 
Many-sided interest, 336 ff. 
Marwedel, Emma, 366. 
Mason, 293. 
Massachusetts Common School 

Journal, 307. 
Maternal schools, 244. 
Maurus, Rabanus, 63 f. 
Mayer, 398. 

Mayo, Charles, 246, 291. 
Medici, 105. 

Melanchthon, 114, 128, 131, 145. 
Mendel, 398. 

Merchant Taylors', 92, 120. 
Meriam, J. L., 432. 
M ethodenhuch, 224. 
Middendorf, 352. 
Mills, Caleb, 325. 
Milton, 152, 155, I57- 
Mittelschule, 377. 
Mohammed, 65. 
Mohammedanism, 27, 65 ff. 
Monastic schools, 49, 54 ff., 132. 
Monitorial system, 239 ff. 
Montaigne, 153 f., 155. 



INDEX 



451 



Montessori, 433. 

Moore, E. C, 437. 

Moors, 66. 

More, 23, 117. 

Morrill ^£^,413. 

Morton, Charles, 158. 

Mother Play and Nursery Songs, 

358 f., 360. 
Motor expression, 356. 
Moving school, 267. _ 
Mulcaster, 155 f; 
Murphy, Judge A. D., 257. 

Nageli, 285, 293. 

Napoleon, 381, 408. 

National Education Association, 

350- 
National Society, 233, 239 f. 
Naturalism, 180, 277. 
Nature study, 415. 
Neander, 129. 
Neef, 292. 
Neomazdeism, 29. 
Neoplatonism, 30. 
Neopythagoreanism, 29. 
Neshaminy, 196. 
Nestorius, 46. 
Neuhof, 278. 
New Atlantis, 23, 166. 
Newlands, 398. 
New Testament, 48. 
Newton, 164 f., 177, 206, 398. 
Niccoli, Niccolo de', 105. 
Nicene Creed, 48. 
Nicolovius, 290. 
Nisibis, 46. 
Normal schools. Carter, 305; 

Mann, 307 f.; Massachusetts, 

320; Middle states, 322, 324; 

Zedlitz, 374; France, 382, 408. 
Notre Dame, 76. 
Novalis, 321. 
Novum Organum, 165. 

Oberlin, 244. 

Oberrealschule, 378 f., 406. 
Observation, 276 ff., 280, 286 ff., 

337, 343- 
Occam, William of, 71. 
Occupational work, Froebel, 363; 

Europe and United States, 

364; Dewey, 429 £. 



Occupations, 354, 359 f. 
Orbis Pictus, 170, 174, 224. 
Ordinance of 1787, 271. 
Origen of Alexandria, 46. 
Oswego methods, 293 f., 415. 
Otherworldliness, 43 ff., 75, loi, 

121. 
Outlines of Educational Doctrine, 

337- 
Owen, 244 f., 387. 

Oxford, 117, 149, 177. 392, 409- 

Padagogium, 176. 

Palace school, 61. 

Palaestra, 14, 17, 21. 

Pancratium, 13. 

Pansophia, 167, 169, 171 ff. 

Parishads, 7. 

Parker, Colonel F. W., 293, 350, 

364, 429. 
Parochial schools, 193 f. 
Peabody, Elizabeth P., 366. 
Peabody Educational Fund, 329. 
Peacham, 156. 
Penn, 120. 

Penn Charter School, 195. 
Pentathlum, 13 f. 
Permissive laws, 256 f., 263 f., 

269, 273, 320, 322, 324 f., 328. 
Persia, 5. 
Pestalozzi, 156, i68, 175, 219, 243, 

277 ff., 363, 368, 415. 
Peter the Lombard, 71 f., 76, 79. 
Petrarch, 103 f. 

Philanthropic movement, 229 ff. 
Philanthropinum, 223 ff. 
Philip Augustus, 76. 
Philonism, 29. 

Philosophical schools, Athens, 27 f. 
Pickering, Timothy, 261 f. 
Pietists, 176 f. 
Plamann, 289. 
Plato, 19 ff., 45, 56 f. 
Politics, 24. 
Poor schools, 261. 
Port Royal, 138 ff. 
Prelection, 135. 
Primitive peoples, 4 f. 
Princes' schools, n6. 
Priscian, 58. 
Progymnasien, 379. 
Protagoras, 18 f. 



452 



INDEX 



Prussian-Pestalozzianism, 289, 293, 

308. _ 
Psychological movement, 220 f., 

41 5 f- 
Ptolemy, 58. 
Public schools, England, 120, 

410. 
PubUc School Society, 247, 261, 

322. 
Pythagoras, 18 f., 23, 45. 

Quadrivium, 23, 57, 62. 
Quarterly Register, 305. 
QuintiUan, 58. 

Rabelais, 155. 
Raikes, 237. 
Ramus, iii. 
Ratich,. 167, 175. 
Raymund of Toledo, 67. 
Realgymnasien, 378, 406. 
Realism, 151 ff., 162, 179. 
Realprogymnasien, 379. 
Realschulen, 176, 378 f., 406. 
Rechahn, 228. 
Reformation, 125 ff. 
Reformschulen, 379. 
Rein,_W., 342, 346. 
Renaissance, 70, 95, loi S. 
Republic, The, 21 ff, 
Reuchlin, 112, 114. 
Reyher, Andreas, 175. 
Rhetorical schools, Athens, 28, 30; 

Rome, 36, 38 f. 
Rhode Island School Journal, 314. 
Ritter, 220, 285 f., 293. 
Ritterakademien, 157, 176. 
Robinson Crusoe, 216, 225, 345. 
Rochow, 228. 
Rogers, W. B., 413. 
Rolland, 381. 
Rollin, 140. 
Rome, 29 f., 32 ff. 
Rousseau, 156, 175, 179, 206 ff., 

231, 277, 285 ff., 363, 368, 416, 

443- 
Rush, B., 261. 
Russell, W., 304. 

St. Paul's school, 93, 118, 132. 
St. Yon, 141. 
Salomon, 364. 



Salzmann, 220, 225, 228, 231, 284. 

Saxony, 145. 

SchelHng, 352. 

Schlegels, The, 352. 

Scholasticism, 69 ff., 76. 

Scholemaster, The, 117. 

Science of Education, 337, 

Scientific movement, 152, 163, 
166 f., 219 f., 397 ff. 

Secondary education, Athens, 15, 
17; Plato, 21; Aristotle, 25; 
Rome, 36; gild schools, 92; 
humanistic, 105 ff.; French, 
in; German, 114 ff.; Eng- 
land, ii8_f., 132, 158, 390 f., 
409; Jesuit, 134; Port Royal, 
138 ff.; La Salle, 141; Reforma- 
tion, 147 f.; America, 158 ff., 
274, 414; Comenius, 171; 
realists, 176; colonial, 191 f., 
193 f., 195 f., 196 f.; charity 
schools, 235; monitorial, 242; 
Virginia, 253 f.; other South- 
ern states, 256 f.; New York, 
258 f.; Massachusetts, 268; 
Carter, 306; Mann, 319, 331; 
Herbart, 347; Prussia, 373, 
378 ff.; France, 384, 408; 
Canada, 394; Germany, 406. 

Seguin,_426 f., 433. 

Self-activity, 356 ff. 

Semler, 176. 

Sense realism, 152, 162 ff., 169, 

173, 17s f-, 179- 
Seventh Annual Report, Mann's, 

293> 308. 
Sheldon, E. A., 293. 
Simultaneous method, 143. 
Skeptics, 28. 
Smith, Adam, 387. 
Social realism, 153 ff. 
Sociological movement, 218, 357 

415 ff. 
Socrates, 19 f. 
Sophie, 217. 
Sophists, 17 ff. 
Sparta, 12 ff. 
Spencer, 220, 400 ff., 416. 
S. P. C. K., 232. 
S. P. G., 234 ff. 
S. P. K. G., 236. 
Stanz, 279 ff. 



INDEX 



453 



Stevens, Thaddeus, 263. 
Stoics, 28, 45. 
Stowe, David, 305. 
Stoy, 345 f. 
Strassburg, 115, 128. 
Sturm, 115 f., 128, 131. 
Siivern, 2Q0. 
Sunday schools, 237 f. 
Swiss Family Robinson, 225. 
Syllabaries, 281, 283. 

Table of fractions, 283. 
Table of units, 281, 283, 293. 
Technische Hochschulen, 380, 

406. 
Theodore of Gaza, 113. 
Thorndike, E. L., 435. 
Thoughts concerning Education, 

ijgi. 
Tieck, 352. 
Toledo, 66. 
Torricelli, 163. 
Trinity Church School, 235. 
Trivium, 57. 
Trotzendorf, 129. 
Turck, 290. 
Tuskegee, 299. 

University, Athens, 29, 39; Alex- 
andria, 28, 39; Rhodes, 29, 
39; Rome, 29, 39; Pergamon, 
29; mediaeval, 74 fl.; Paris, 
75 ff., no; Bologna, 75 ff.; 
Salerno, 75; Erfurt, in; 
Leipzig, in; Heidelberg, in; 
Tubingen, in; Ingoldstadt, 
in; Vienna, in; Witten- 
berg, in; Marburg, in; 
Konigsberg, in; Jena, in; 
after Reformation, 148 f.; 
Halle, 177; Gottingen, 177; 
Yale, 177; Princeton, 177, 
196; Columbia, 177; Penn- 
sylvania, 177; Virginia, 254; 
Georgia, 256; Michigan, 326; 
France, 381; Cornell, 413; 
Johns Hopkins, 413. 

University of the State of New 
York, 259. 



Vaux, Robert, 247. 

Vergerio, 105. 

Verona, 105. 

Vestibulum, 169 f. 

Visconti, 105. 

Vittorino da Feltre, 105 ff. 

Vives, 117. 

Vocational education, 219, 240, 

249. 
Volksschulen, 145, 377, 407. 
Voltaire, 204 ff., 287. 
Voluntary schools, 388 ff., 425. 
Vorschulen, 380. 

Wandering students, 78. 

Wehrli, 295. 

Weiss, Professor, 352. 

Wessel, 112. 

What Knowledge Is of Most Wortht 
400. 

Whitebread, 387. 

Wilderspin, 245. 

William of Champeaux, 76. 

WiUiams, Roger, 120. 

Wimpfeling, 112, 125. 

Wirt, W. A., 432. 

Witmer, L., 427. 

Woman's education, Hindu, 7; 
Sparta, 14; Athens, 15; Aris- 
totle, 25; Rome, 34; Convent, 
56; Luther, 127; realists, 156; 
academies, 160; Comenius, 
171; charity schools, 278; 
Pestalozzi, 278; Fellenberg, 
297; Mann, 309; France, 385. 

Woodbridge, W. C, 305. 

Woodhouse, John, 158. 

Wiirtemberg, 145. 

Wyss, 255. 

Yocum, A. D., 436. 
York, 56, 61. 

Youmans, E. L., 403, 405. 
Yverdon, 283. 

Zedlitz, von, 374. 

Ziller, 289, 295, 341 f., 345 f., 347, 

Zoroastrianism, 29. 

Zwingli, 129. 



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